Ahmed Aboutaleb, Social Affairs State Secretary in Rotterdam, was nominated as mayor on Thursday.

Aboutaleb is a member of Labour (PvdA). The PvdA-dominated local council of Rotterdam nominated him yesterday. Home Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst has yet to appoint him but her approval is a mere formality, said Nis News Bulletin. 

Aboutaleb, like all Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands, has both Dutch and Moroccan nationality. He combines his Muslim faith with a political style that is typically Dutch: consensus and dialogue are paramount.

Aboutaleb will compete with Gerd Leers, a member of the Christian democrats (CDA).

Some Muslims consider him too 'white,' some 'whites' find him too soft. In reality, Aboutaleb is in the Labour (PvdA) tradition of anti-polarisation.

Amsterdam and Utrecht, the biggest and fourth city respectively, already belong to the PvdA. Now that party, struggling in the polls, will be holding the mayoral position in three of the 'big four' cities.

The choice for PvdA's Aboutaleb might have been pushed by a poll conducted recently by Algemeen Dagblad. The newspaper reported Rotterdammers wanted State Secretary Nebahat Albayrak as their mayor. She was not a candidate, but like Aboutaleb, she is a Muslim, a faith that many Rotterdammers share with her.

Who is Aboutaleb?

Aboutaleb, 37, belongs Moroccan origine. His father was an Imam. He came to the Netherlands aged 16. He satarted his carrier as a journalist for a variety of TV broadcasters and news programmes, including NOS Radio and RTL Nieuws.

By becoming a spokesman for State Secretary Simons and Health Minister Hedy d'Ancona (1989-1994), he began his involvement in public administration.

In 1998, he became a member of the Institute for Multicultural Development (FORUM). Two yeas later, he joined the Education Council and in 2002, he became Amsterdam local council's director of Social, Economic and Cultural Development.

In February 2004, he became Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen's alderman for Work and Income, Education, Youth and Diversity. And in the spring of last year, he joined the national government, taking his present post of Social Affairs State Secretary. His move to Rotterdam now is certainly yet another promotion.

Aboutaleb's election is in two ways remarkable. Of course his Islamic faith makes the appointment unique. But also, a tradition has been broken of the established parties each claiming certain cities.

It is a public secret that the procedure of electing mayors, at least in the big cities, has been a closed circuit of agreements between the established parties. According to this logic, Gerd Leers should have emerged the winner.

Rotterdam had to go to the CDA, because The Hague went earlier to the VVD. In the third-largest city, Jozias van Aartsen (VVD) recently took over the chain of office from CDA Mayor Wim Deetman. Insiders were convinced that CDA and VVD had swapped Rotterdam and The Hague.

Reuters