12 July 2023 at 18:20
She is making a career at a furious pace. Less than ten years ago, Dilan Yesilgöz became a councilor in Amsterdam. Now the outgoing minister of justice wants to succeed Mark Rutte as VVD leader.
Sleeping too well makes her restless. Yesilgöz told this when she was a guest in the television program in December 2014 The Night Kiss. She wants to lie awake every now and then and think about problems and solutions.
She was then 37 years old and just a VVD councilor in Amsterdam. Before that, she worked as a civil servant for a number of years, also under the current outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD), who was an alderman at the time.
According to Van der Burg, Yesilgöz sometimes got angry if he did not follow her advice. “Then I said: ‘Then you have to go into politics yourself'”, he told Sven Kockelmann’s NPO Radio 1 program on Wednesday morning.
She did. And now – less than ten years later – she may be the one who succeeds Rutte as VVD leader after seventeen years.
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Yesilgöz does not shy away from the media
As a council member, Yesilgöz took the initiative for the ‘sis ban’ together with the CDA. The proposal to combat street harassment was adopted in 2016. Although she had only recently entered politics, she did not mince words at the time.
For example, she wrote opinion articles in NRC about the events in Cologne around New Year’s Eve 2015. Dozens of women were assaulted and robbed. Almost all suspects and perpetrators came from abroad. Most were of Moroccan or Algerian descent. Yesilgöz felt that this was underexposed for too long. “And the discussion on social media that mentioning the origin of the perpetrators would be discriminatory? Stop, please stop!” she wrote.
Yesilgöz was also often seen in the media at that time. She was a table lady Studio PowNedwas a regular guest at broadcaster WNL and also sat at the table as a council member Buitenhof.
After barely three years as a councilor, she was in nineteenth place on the VVD list for the 2017 parliamentary elections. Four years later, she was in fifth place. In the beginning of her time as a member of parliament, she was involved in media and development cooperation, later in climate and energy, and finally in justice and security.
Photo: ANP
After wandering around on the left, Yesilgöz finds the VVD
Her heart is in the latter area, she said in 2020 de Volkskrant. Almost two years later, she also aspired to the post of justice minister. “Without security, there is no freedom. That is of course part of my whole story, it is part of everything I stand for,” she said in an interview at the end of 2022. interview with the same newspaper.
It is a theme that goes well with the VVD. Yet Yesilgöz ended up with the Liberal Party via a roundabout route. Her parents were left-oriented in Turkey, where Yesilgöz was born. That is why during her studies she wandered around the SP, GroenLinks and the PvdA. That period didn’t last long, because she didn’t feel at home anywhere.
Later she found out that the VVD suited her well. “Freedoms, human rights and the rock-solid belief in the possibilities of the individual, that to me is the core of liberalism”, said them in 2014.
As a young girl on the run to the Netherlands
She inherited the values from her Kurdish father and Turkish mother. Together with her mother and sister, she came to the Netherlands as a political refugee at a young age. Her father had already fled a few years earlier because he was in danger in Turkey. Her parents fought for equal rights for minorities there.
Despite her life story, she advocates a strict migration policy. Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte casually emphasized in the debate on the fall of the cabinet on Monday that Yesilgöz is “slightly more right” than he is within the VVD.
Political career
Yesilgöz studied Culture, Organization and Management in Amsterdam From 2004 to 2006 she worked for the Scientific Bureau for Research and Statistics at the municipality of Amersfoort After that she was a civil servant at the municipality of Amsterdam for eight years In 2014 she became a VVD councilor in the city, with the portfolios Security, Poverty and Sport After the 2017 parliamentary elections, she became a VVD member of parliament. She was involved in media, climate, energy and security, among other things. Four years later, she was installed as State Secretary for Climate and Energy in the Rutte III cabinet, which was already outgoing. Safety
Already a cabinet post after four years as a Member of Parliament
In her time as a Member of Parliament, she quickly made a name for herself and still sought out the media. However, the VVD member sometimes made a blunder. For example, she was once whistled back by the VVD party because she said she supported an extension of the fireworks ban.
After about four years, Yesilgöz was appointed outgoing State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in the Rutte III cabinet. She has now been Minister of Justice and Security (outgoing) for about a year and a half.
It is one of the toughest government posts. Her predecessors Ivo Opstelten and Ard van der Steur died prematurely. There were open doubts about the appointment of Yesilgöz in the media. With her, the Netherlands got a justice minister for the first time who did not send any rights.
As a minister, she wants to tackle organized crime
But she holds her own and firmly bites into serious crime. For example, she traveled to Italy to gain inspiration and advocates a tough and repressive approach. As a minister, she had to deal with the aftermath of the murders of crime journalist Peter R. de Vries, the brother of crown witness Nabil B. and lawyer Derk Wiersum.
After a damning report from the Dutch Safety Board, she apologized to the relatives on behalf of the cabinet. Her great involvement and human approach are appreciated in those circles.
If the VVD board supports Yesilgöz this week, it must be very strange if she is not a leader in the upcoming elections. Given the electoral chances that the VVD has, it can then make a shot at the premiership.
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2023-07-12 16:20:00
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