Prime Minister Mark Rutte equals Ruud Lubbers’ record as the longest serving Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Cabinet troubles, crises and a plane crash: a lot happened in the Netherlands under the leadership of ‘Teflon Mark’.
Rutte will be Prime Minister for a total of 4,309 days on Monday. The first cabinet led by former CDA Prime Minister Lubbers started on November 4, 1982. In August 1994, then PvdA leader Wim Kok took over the premiership from Lubbers after 4,309 days.
As the longest-serving prime minister, Rutte managed to set a number of questionable records, according to research by the Parliamentary Documentation Center of Leiden University. For example, most motions of no confidence and/or censure: 104 times MPs withdrew their confidence in the prime minister or disapproved of his policy. Or the longest-serving outgoing cabinet: because the formation of Rutte IV did not want to succeed, Rutte’s third cabinet remained responsible for 360 days after his resignation.
Rutte’s career as prime minister started in 2010, with a cabinet consisting only of the VVD and CDA. The two parties concluded a tolerance agreement with the PVV for a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. In 2012, Rutte’s first cabinet fell due to disagreements with the PVV about a billion-dollar cut. New elections were called and the PvdA achieved a monstrous victory. VVD leader Rutte therefore decided to join forces with that party and Rutte II was a fact. It would be a reign that signed Rutte’s premiership, above all because of the downing of flight MH17. In 2016, in the VPRO program Zomergasten, Rutte called the crash of the flight “the worst I have experienced in my job”.
During Rutte’s last cabinets, the country encountered a number of crises. The corona pandemic, the allowance affair, the debate about Pieter Omtzigt and the “function elsewhere” and the poor archiving of text messages: just a few of the challenges that Rutte III and IV faced and face. Nevertheless, even after the fall of his third cabinet, the prime minister managed to win the elections to the House of Representatives again, thanks to the conclusions of the parliamentary investigation into the allowance affair.
Rutte’s fourth cabinet is again faced with major challenges, such as the nitrogen crisis and the war between Russia and Ukraine. During one of his weekly press conferences, he was able to confirm this recently. “I must say that the number of puzzles on my desk right now is quite large.” He says he can accept the fact that people in the media occasionally wonder aloud whether he is past his expiration date as the country’s leader. “I’ve learned to live with that question being asked every now and then.”
In the Netherlands there is no limit on the number of terms of office of a prime minister, unlike in some other countries. How do you view that? Shouldn’t a prime minister be allowed to stay in the Netherlands for more than eight years, or is it fine the way it is now arranged? Respond to our statement.