Dutch Elections 2021: Female Leadership in the Horizon

Observing the Dutch elections in 2017 from a gender perspective through the implementation of the GEOM Netherlands, Gender Concerns International is observing the pre-election period in the Netherlands with great interest.

The candidacy of the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, Sigrid Kaag, for the leadership of the political party D66, highlights the importance of female leadership at the highest position of government. Rob Jetten, the current leader of D66, is not running again for the party’s leadership, leaving Minister Kaag’s candidacy unchallenged, facilitating her takeover of the party’s leadership without a vote.

In the Netherlands, the position of prime minister is reserved for the leader of the party that has the most seats in the House of Representatives. Therefore, Minister Kaag’s candidacy also implies that if D66 gains the most seats in the elections in March 2021, she will become prime minister.

Showing her resilience, passion, and ability to lead, Minister Kaag is putting forward an active and extremely engaged electoral campaign. Since announcing her candidacy, she has been traveling around the Netherlands and Europe, taking part in meetings, advocating for issues such as gender, Covid-19 response and recovery, climate change, racial inequality, intra-governmental cooperation opportunities, the EU, and more.

In Minister Kaag’s words, if she becomes prime minister, her goal is:

“to guide everyone well through the crisis, in a clean and fair economy with new opportunities and new jobs. To break through the divisions in society and end the exclusion experienced by too many people. To strengthen the role of the Netherlands in Europe and to look at the world with an open mind again”.

As an organization that fervently advocates for and promotes female leadership on a global scale, Gender Concerns International greatly appreciates this emerging trend in the Netherlands in which women are running for top leadership positions.