Dutch Socialist Party leader Roemer quits
Xinhua,December 13, 2017 Adjust font size:
THE HAGUE, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Dutch Socialist Party (SP) leader Emile Roemer announced his departure from politics during a last-minute press conference in The Hague on Wednesday.
"It is time for someone else to take over," Roemer explained. "My part of the mission is finished. I do not want be the politician who left too late."
Roemer will step down in the beginning of January 2018 and will also leave the Dutch House of Representatives. As party leader he will be succeeded by the 32-year-old Lilian Marijnissen, the daughter of former SP party leader Jan Marijnissen.
The 55-year-old Roemer became a member of the House of Representatives in November 2006 and took over as SP leader in March 2010, following the resignation of Agnes Kant. At that moment the party was on a low and Roemer led the party to 15 of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament during the elections of June 2010.
In the buildup to the elections in September 2012, Roemer's SP even was the biggest party in the polls for a moment, but eventually the result was the same as in 2010, which was considered a disappointment.
In the March 2017 elections the SP ended up on 14 seats. Roemer excluded cooperation with the winning party of the elections, the rightist liberals VVD of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and therefore the SP played no role in the government formation. Enditem