Alexander Scholtes will be the new alderman for Healthcare and ICT for the municipality of Amsterdam. That made his party D66 known on Tuesday. Scholtes succeeds Shula Rijxman who resigned last month after less than a year.
Forty-year-old Scholtes has been active in Amsterdam politics since 2007. He is currently chairman of the Centrum district and previously served as policy adviser to D66 Amsterdam, party chairman in the Zuid district and political adviser to Kajsa Ollongren during her time as alderman of Amsterdam. In his own words, Scholtes wants to “dedicate himself to tackling the inequality of opportunity in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, not all children have the same opportunities to grow up healthy and safe.”
Shula Rijxman suddenly announced her departure as alderman in February. In a letter to the city council at the time, she stated that as a director she was “too often a subject of discussion in practice” to be able to properly perform her duties. Since taking office in June last year, Rijxman has been haunted by an affair from her time as NPO chairman. A whistleblower who reported possible abuses in public broadcasting to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science was never informed that the senior official responsible maintained a “friendly relationship” with Rijxman.
Later, Rijxman also had to answer to the council for the subsidy from the municipality of Amsterdam for the controversial cold case investigation into the betrayal of Anne Frank. She had to admit that, despite an earlier promise, she had not had an investigation carried out into the recovery of the grant money.
Read also: Shula Rijxman (D66) left after eight months as alderman in Amsterdam: ‘no longer comfortable in the role’