Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag said she will step down as the leader of Netherlands’ second largest political party citing her family’s concerns over the threats she receives from conspiracy theorists and right wing extremists.
“It is no secret where my dilemma lies: it is with my family,” Kaag told Dutch newspaper Trouw as she announced her decision to leave the leadership of progressive Democrats 66 (D66) party. “My work has taken a toll on my children and my husband,” she said. “It is a fact that they are concerned. My safety is an issue for them.”
Kaag’s decision comes on the heels of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s surprise announcement Monday that he’s leaving politics after his coalition government collapsed amid infighting over migration policy, throwing the Netherlands in limbo.
Kaag has faced multiple death threats since she became the leader of the D66 party in 2020 and then the country’s first female finance minister in 2022, after winning a historic 24 seats in the election a year earlier, making her the second most powerful person in Dutch politics after Rutte.
She said her tenure as party leader was “also accompanied by hate, intimidation and threats,” according to a statement. “That put a heavy burden on my family,” she said.
Her progressive politics and gender have often made her a target for attacks. Earlier this year, she was confronted by an angry mob carrying torches during a work visit. A man with a flaming torch was arrested outside her house last year. In May, her two daughters asked Kaag to quit her job as they fear for her life.
“As a minister in various cabinets, party leader of D66 and as a person, she has meant a lot to the Netherlands. Privately, she had to pay an unacceptably high price for this,” Rutte said in a tweet Thursday.
A new government could take a while to form after elections, which are expected in mid November.
“The fall of the cabinet was unnecessary and regrettable. There are still major challenges for the Netherlands,” Kaag said in the statement.
Her decision to quit adds to the biggest shake up in Dutch politics in recent years, following Rutte and Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra’s announcement that he will step aside from the helm of the Christian Democrats. That leaves three political parties in the caretaker coalition without influential leaders at a time when the Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BBB, is gaining momentum. The BBB became the biggest party in the Dutch upper house after opposing the Rutte government’s push to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030.
At the same time, the two left-leaning parties GroenLinks and the PvdA have vowed to unite ahead of the upcoming elections, which could alter the political landscape.
Kaag’s departure as finance minister will likely have an impact on the Dutch stance in the European Union. The Netherlands is historically at the hawkish end of the EU, with Rutte leading resistance to the pandemic recovery fund in 2020. Kaag engaged more with EU partners as she sought a balance with less conservative member states.
Kaag said she will remain as caretaker finance minister until the formation of the next cabinet. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” Kaag said in response to a question on whether she plans to leave the Netherlands. A career diplomat by occupation, she may consider taking up an international role.
Kaag, who started her career at Royal Dutch Shell, has lived and worked in Beirut, Vienna, and Khartoum as part of her time in the diplomatic service and the United Nations. She led a mission to destruct Syria’s chemical weapons in 2014. In 2021, she resigned as foreign minister after the Dutch parliament condemned her handling of the Afghanistan evacuation crisis.
--With assistance from Diederik Baazil.
(Updates with details throughout)
