Dutch voters will go to the polls on in an early general election on Nov. 22, the caretaker government announced Friday, a week after Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s four-party coalition quit over its failure to agree a package of measures to rein in migration.
The vote for the 150 seats in the lower chamber of parliament will usher in a new generation of leaders after key members of Rutte’s fourth governing coalition announced they would leave politics.
Rutte, the Netherlands’ longest-serving premier, signalled the end of an era when he said Monday he would leave politics once a new coalition has been installed after the elections. That is a process that can take months of negotiations between potential coalition members.
Rutte was followed by Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra and Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag, once tipped as a potential first ever female prime minister of the Netherlands.
Kaag said this week she was leaving politics because of the impact on her family of repeated threats she has received during her time in office.
