“Who is Rob Jetten?”, write our southern neighbors from VRT and Nieuwsblad on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The domestic and foreign press is full of introduction rounds, explanatory stories and background information about the Uden politician. From ‘Dutch Obama’ to ‘the first gay prime minister’.
“Rob Jetten would be by far the youngest post-war Prime Minister,” headlined the NRC newspaper on Wednesday evening. It is one of the many articles written about the Uden politician, while the results per municipality continue to trickle in. “The big winner”, de Volkskrant calls him. “The premiership beckons.”
‘Jetten is a sports wunderkind.’
Jetten partly owes this to his campaign, which was full of positivity. ‘It is possible, it is possible, it is possible’, echoed through the room during the big results evening of D66. It is the election slogan of the D66 campaign, which many journalists compared to Angela Merkels’we will buy that‘ and the ‘yes we can‘ by Barack Obama. At the same time, the politician is crowned ‘the Dutch Obama’ by the Rheinische Post and the BBC.
But it is certainly not just about his political achievements. To get an idea of the potential prime ministerial candidate from Uden, the foreign press is making rounds of introductions. “Jetten is a sports wunderkind,” writes German newspaper Bild about his former sports career alongside Sifan Hassan. Even his previous nickname translates to ‘Roboter Jetten’. And they also say that after laser eye surgery he no longer needs glasses.
‘Why is my orientation always mentioned?’
It’s a lot about his orientation. “He’s openly gay himself,”could become the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister” and ‘le premier premier ministre ouvertement homosexuel’, is written in foreign media. In 2021, Jetten expressed his frustration about this in the newspaper Trouw. “Why is my orientation always mentioned?”
Perhaps his engagement to ‘Argentina Hockey Star’ Nicolás Keenan also plays a role. “This is the handsome and sporty fiancée of politician Rob Jetten,” writes Libelle. Also interesting, then. And certainly also for Argentinian media.
Because they also benefit from the success of the Udense politician. “A moderate party could win and make the future husband of an Argentinian athlete prime minister,” reads the headline in Argentina’s Clarín. “After Queen Máxima, the Netherlands would now be an Argentinian first gentleman can get.”