AMSTERDAM, Feb 24 — Rob Jetten won over the Dutch electorate with promises of optimism and progress, but he will have his work cut out translating words into actions leading a...
Once mocked as ‘Robot Jetten’, the D66 leader has reinvented himself as a charismatic communicator with a mandate for change. — AFP picand enjoy FREE RM10 & when you sign up using code VERSAMM10 with min.
cash of RM100 today! T&Cs apply.AMSTERDAM, Feb 24 — Rob Jetten won over the Dutch electorate with promises of optimism and progress, but he will have his work cut out translating words into actions leading a minority government. The 38-year-old’s self-professed “positive message” and youthful energy helped pull off a stunning win over the far-right Freedom Party in last year’s election.” (“Yes, it’s possible”, Jetten is keen to appear “decisive and effective”, according to Sarah de Lange, a professor of politics at Leiden University. “After two governments that have been short-lived and have not been able to implement any substantial reforms, this government stresses that it wants to act,” she told AFP. However, with only 66 seats in the 150-seat parliament, Jetten’s coalition with the centre-right CDA party and the liberal VVD is likely to find itself hamstrung when passing legislation. Jetten, who will be the Netherlands’ youngest prime minister and its first openly gay one, has had a head-spinning rise up the political hierarchy. Entering parliament at the tender age of 30, he became leader of the D66 just a year later, the youngest ever to hold the post. His carefully rehearsed lines and bookish glasses earned him the unwelcome nickname of “Robot Jetten” in his early career. But he shed the glasses after laser eye surgery and adopted a less earnest demeanour that saw him impress in his ubiquitous media appearances during the election campaign.“The best advice I got then was to tell your story as if you were sitting around the table with your mates,” he said, referring to the early years. He has also vamped up his Tiktok presence, posting lively behind‑the‑scenes glimpses into political life with a spring in his step.“A geek. That is really what I was at age 12,” he admits. He studied public administration at Radboud University in Nijmegen, which he selected on “late chooser’s day”.A talented junior athlete, Jetten once ran as a pace-setter for future Olympic champion Sifan Hassan. “As a child and teenager, I was a keen games player. Football and athletics were my greatest passions,” he said. “But as I grew up and started discovering my identity, it was quite difficult not to identify with top-level gay athletes.” Jetten has been in a relationship with Nicolas Keenan, an international hockey player for Argentina, since 2022. The couple plan to marry this year in Spain.He has deliberately worked to reclaim the Dutch flag from far‑right symbolism and angry farmers by presenting it as a source of inclusive, progressive pride. Jetten has also made investment in education a central pillar of his political agenda, repeatedly stressing that D66 will not support any cuts to education funding. From early on in the election campaign, Jetten ruled out a coalition with far-right leader Geert Wilders, calling him “the biggest bully in the playground”.It could all have been so different for the young runner, who represented the Netherlands at junior level. “After a career in top-level sports, I wanted to go into the catering industry. It runs in my family,” he told his university website. “Ideally, I wanted to have my own restaurant, on a beach in a warm country. But it all turned out differently. “Not that I regret it: I now have the most beautiful job in the Netherlands,” he said in the interview published three years ago. But as Jetten steps into the next phase of his political rise, his trademark optimism may face its toughest test yet. — AFP
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