Sofia wrote:Nimh-- Has Netherlands had a person of color in the top spot yet?
Goooood question.
No, we haven't had a Prime Minister of color yet. Of course, we've only had a minority population of some size since fairly recently - but by now, we
are talking some 15% of the population, so ... we should at least start considering it!
Shamefully, we've never had a woman Prime Minister either, yet.
The
first woman to get into Parliament was Suze Groeneweg, of the Social-Democratic Workers Party, the Labour Party's predecessor. That was in 1918 - when women weren't even allowed to vote yet! 1922 was the first time women got to vote in national elections ...
The
first woman to become Minister was Marga Klompe, in 1956. For the Catholic People's Party, ironically enough (the CPP had been among the opponents of women's right to vote in '18). The
first female Chair of Parliament was Jeltje van der Nieuwenhoven (Labour), in 1998 ...
Getting back to people of colour ... the
first person of colour to come into parliament since WW2 (or so he says in an interview, in any case) was John Lilipaly, for the Labour Party again. That was in 1986 ... <shakes head>.
But it was the "stop-immigration" List Fortuyn, going out of its way to dispel the association with extreme-right parties elsewhere in Europe (and to embarass other parties, heh), which in 2002 appointed the
first person of colour to a government position - a woman, too, Philomena Bijlhout. She became Deputy Minister of Emancipation.
Unfortunately she also was to break the record of shortest-time-in-office, as she had to resign after one day, when it came to light that she had been in Surinamese dictator Bouterse's militia in the 80s. In her place the List Fortuyn, however, appointed another person of minority background, Khee Liang Phoa.
To underline its point, the List Fortuyn also had a higher proportion of people from minority groups among its MPs than any other party, in 2002 ... up till then it had always been the Labour Party. By the 2003 elections, however, most minority group List Fortuyn MPs had been demoted or disappeared ...
