The four-time Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, has announced his departure from politics after the collapse of his coalition government in a row over immigration.
His decision means the end of more than 13 years in power for the conservative leader sometimes called “Teflon Mark” because scandals that plagued his four different administrations did not stick to him.
The Netherlands’ longest-serving government leader told an emergency parliamentary debate on Monday morning that he would not lead his People’s party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) into general elections expected in November and would instead leave politics after the vote.
Rutte said: “In the past few days, people have speculated about what motivates me, and the only answer is: the Netherlands. My position is completely subservient to the country. Yesterday morning I took the decision that I will no longer be available to head the VVD list. When a new government takes over, I shall leave politics.”
The coalition collapsed over Rutte’s plans to tighten curbs on reuniting families of asylum seekers, in an attempt to curb numbers or arrivals after the overcrowding scandal. He had announced on Friday night that his four-party government had broken down over the issue of asylum and “unbridgeable” differences.
Immigration has become one of the most contentious issues in the Netherlands since last autumn, when there were desperate scenes at a registration centre in Ter Apel, with people sleeping outside for days and a baby dying in a crowded sports hall.
Rutte will remain at the head of a caretaker government unable to take decisions on controversial issues such as house building, pollution, a cost of living crisis and asylum until a successor is in place following the elections.
Plaudits for Rutte’s long tenure came in from industry, relatives of 196 Dutch nationals killed in the shooting down of the airliner MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, as well as opposition MPs.
Rutte, 56, said he had “mixed feelings” but it was “also a relief to hand over the baton”. He was not interested in a job like leading Nato, he said, but might well expand his citizenship teaching job at a local school to two days instead of one.
GreenLeft on Monday withdrew the motion of no confidence in Rutte as caretaker PM, with its leader Jesse Klaver saying he had put “the interests of the country first” with his decision to announce his exit from politics.
The outcome of the expected mid-November general election is unpredictable in the multiparty, fragmented Dutch system, where trust in government is at historic lows.
After the resignation of Rutte’s government, the far-right anti-immigration PVV led by Geert Wilders started campaigning and the flags went out for Caroline van der Plas’s Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), a surprise winner in provincial elections in March. The rightwing populist BBB runs on a pro-farmer ticket at a time when the Netherlands must drastically reduce nitrogen-based pollution.
Wopke Hoekstra, the leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal, the traditional farming party, has already said he would not lead the CDA into elections after a collapse in support this year.
GreenLeft and Labour said at the weekend they would ask their members to form a leftwing coalition going into elections.