An Amsterdammer in Rotterdam
nrc.nl – International – Rotterdam chooses Dutch Moroccan mayor
Ahmed Aboutaleb, a prominent Labour politician who was born in Morocco, will be the new mayor of Rotterdam. Aboutaleb (47) is currently the deputy minister of social affairs. He will start his new job on January 1, 2009, after the home affairs ministry confirms his appointment.
Before becoming a deputy minister in February 2007, Aboutaleb made a name for himself in Amsterdam, where he was the city council’s executive for social affairs.
Aboutaleb is the first mayor of Moroccan descent to be appointed in the Netherlands. Rotterdam is the country’s second biggest city (population 584,000) and has substantial social and poverty issues.
It is also the city where populist politician Pim Fortuyn started his short-lived political career. Fortuyn was murdered by an environmental activist in 2002, just a few days prior to the national elections.
His ‘heirs’ still make up the largest opposition party in Rotterdam and have voiced strong criticism of Aboutaleb, not so much for his background in rival city Amsterdam, but for his roots in Morocco.
“Aboutaleb is a Muslim and he has two passports. Should he, of all people, be in charge of a city where the majority of the immigrant population refuses to integrate?” city councillor Dries Mosch said.
Aboutaleb, currently in Marseille, France, told press agency ANP that he was very pleased with his nomination as mayor of “a really nice city, with a special population and a great history.”
Mayors in the Netherlands are political appointees.