USA .Sent Mail Afghanistan Africa Union Albania Algeria Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Baltic Nations Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bolivia Bosnia Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chad Chile China Colombia Congo Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia European Union Fiji Finland France Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guam Guatemala Guyana Haiti Holland Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhastan Kenya Kosovo Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Liberia Libya Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malaysia Mali Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Monaco Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Namibia NATO Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea Norway Oman Pakistan Panama Paraguay Peru Phillipines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Somalia South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United Nations Uruguay Uzbekistan Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Western Sahara Yemen Zaire Zambia Zimbabwe

Headlines :: Marketplace :: Members (0) :: Affiliate Message

Featured Links

Results 1 - 10 of 1 Headlines for Holland

0 COMMENTS

The party founded by the murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was facing its second leadership crisis in three months last night after its new leader announced his resignation. Mat Herben, elected leader in May after Mr Fortuyn was shot dead by an animal rights activist, steered the maverick party into Holland’s new Right-wing coalition government after it took second place in the May general election.

Mr Herben, 49, said: "The party knows I don’t want to remain as leader. I took the job as a debt of honour to Pim Fortuyn and under great pressure."

The Pim Fortuyn List lost its first government minister, Philomena Biljhoult, within hours of her appointment after it emerged that she had served in a bloodthirsty militia in the former Dutch colony of Suriname in the 1980s. The party’s unravelling has not come as a total shock as it is represented by MPs picked by Mr Fortuyn, a flamboyant homosexual, more for their eccentricities than for their political experience. Mr Herben’s possible successors include a former fashion model and an economist of Cape Verdean origin, who caused a stir when he joined the party, which opposes immigration.

The self-effacing Mr Herben, a former press officer for a masonic lodge and family man whose favourite hobby is reported to be plane spotting, lacked the flamboyancy of the high-camp, shaven-headed Mr Fortuyn. He recently came under pressure from grassroots supporters, who accused him of diluting the party’s policies on crime and immigration to clinch a coalition place. His resignation heightened concerns that the List’s instability could damage the coalition government led by Jan-Peter Balkenende, the Christian Democrat prime minister, and the liberal VVD. Joost Eerdmans, a party MP, said yesterday that tensions over Mr Herben’s leadership emerged within days of the party being invited to join the government. "He said it is better to be an adviser, as he was under Pim Fortuyn, than to be in the spotlight," he said.