Schoof, 67, is currently the top official at the Ministry of Justice and former head of the Dutch intelligence service.
Dutch right-wing coalition parties have named former security chief Dick Schoof as their preferred candidate to become the next prime minister of the Netherlands.
Schoof, 67, is currently the top official at the Ministry of Justice and former head of the Dutch intelligence and immigration services. After nearly six months of debate within the coalition, Schoof will succeed outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
“On the recommendation and with the support of the leaders of the parliamentary coalition… I have found that Mr. Dick Schoof is willing to be available as the future prime minister,” said Richard van Zwol, the official in charge of leading talks to form a new government Dutch. he said on Tuesday.
Despite a stunning electoral victory in November, far-right leader Geert Wilders has given up on his ambition to lead the European Union’s fifth-largest economy, amid widespread unease over his anti-Islam and anti-European views.
Wilders and other coalition leaders asked Schoof, who originally came from the left-leaning Labor Party but is seen as an official capable of confronting threats inside and outside the Netherlands, to take the role.
Schoof will now be tasked with forming a government together with van Zwol and the four right-wing coalition partners who have 88 seats in the 150-member lower house of parliament.
This includes Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), newcomers the New Social Contract Party (NSC) and the pro-agriculture Farmer-Citizen Movement.
The coalition has decided that the cabinet will be divided in half between politicians and external experts to implement the Netherlands’ “toughest” immigration policy ever.
Schoof told journalists at a press conference that he intended to “decisively” implement the policies decided two weeks ago by coalition partners in a draft government agreement.
“This means controlling migration and asylum, giving people, including farmers, security of life, and looking at international security,” he said.
“That’s why I’m here,” Schoof said.
It took around six months for the leaders of four political parties to agree on a government, and the manifesto they released bore the hallmarks of Wilders’ far-right PVV.
Wilders told the AFP news agency after the manifesto was released that the new government would apply “the toughest anti-asylum measures [policy] already being implemented in the Netherlands.”
He promised that the Netherlands would seek a way out of the EU’s common asylum policy, although the idea has been met with a cold reception in Brussels and it is unclear how it would work.
Wilders admitted this would take many years and might not happen, promising instead to use Dutch law to restrict what he called an “influx of asylum seekers.”
Schoof, who has decades of experience navigating the bureaucratic pitfalls of The Hague, said he aimed to be “a prime minister for all Dutch citizens” when asked about carrying out Wilders’ policies.
“I will be the prime minister. I’m without a party. I don’t see myself bowing down to Mr. Wilders,” Schoof told journalists, but stressed that “my plans for the Netherlands are those agreed by the coalition leaders.”
The coalition parties now intend to have a government in place before the summer, said the NOS public presenter.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
