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THE HAGUE, The Netherlands – Former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, a trade unionist turned politician who inspired a new generation of pragmatic social-democratic leaders who came to power in Europe in the 1990s, died at 80 years.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that Kok, who died on Saturday, "was a man to rent – if only for his long service and great importance to our country". Labor Party leader Lodewijk Asscher called Kok a "model of integrity".
Kok linked his Dutch Labor Party to the right-wing liberal party and centrist Democrats 66 to form two ruling coalitions that led the Netherlands to unprecedented economic success from 1994 to 2002.
Before Kok's second electoral victory in 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised him as "one of the greatest politicians in history."
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin also praised Kok's policies on camber.
The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, his wife, Queen Maxima, and former Queen Beatrix, issued a statement Saturday in which he congratulated Kok for his "integrity and talent to make complex problems manageable. ".
Kok defused the public's discomfort about the royal couple's marriage by persuading Maxima's father, Jorge Zorreguieta, not to attend the 2002 wedding. Zorreguieta had held the position of Minister of Agriculture for two years during the dictatorship of Argentine President Jorge Videla in 1976-1983.
Later in the year, Kok resigned as prime minister with his entire government after a critical report on the administration's handling of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. while the Dutch UN peacekeepers had not prevented the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. .
A government-commissioned report harshly criticized the Kok administration for sending Dutch soldiers into a danger zone without an appropriate warrant and the weapons needed to protect some 30,000 refugees who had fled to the Dutch base. Eastern Bosnia.
Rutte said "it is no secret that the tragedy of Srebrenica has made it heavy until the end."
One of Kok's greatest assets in a nation that has a strong mistrust of authority is his image as an ordinary man – a realistic and trustworthy realist.
During the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games, Kok and his wife Rita decided to travel further to the United States. Refusing the protection offered 24 hours a day by the secret services, the Koks rented a Winnebago and put themselves to death. Their only concession to US security-minded authorities was to call the sheriff's office every day with the CIA to tell them where they were.
"The sheriffs of the small towns would start talking to their friends about the tourist who claimed to be the Dutch prime minister," said Erica Terpstra, a former Dutch sports official. "Kok burst out laughing."
Kok, the son of a Dutch carpenter, will be remembered as one of the founding fathers of the "polder model". It refers to the typically Dutch brand of consensual politics in which government, employers and unions have come together to pay their salaries. offers. The policy stipulated that unions agree to take restrictive measures in times of economic crisis, as long as employees are allowed to share profits when things are going well.
Before turning to national politics, the left-wing party of the most powerful Dutch union turned to national politics. Kok has moved to the right of the political spectrum during his tenure. Despite this, his reputation for political honesty remains unscathed.
"Personally, he drifted from the far left to the far right," said in an interview in 1998 Bert de Vries, a former Christian Democrat. "I could not take it off, but he believes it. This is a survivor.
After his political career, Kok was a non-executive member of the board of Dutch multinationals, including Shell and KLM.
Self-proclaimed from the working class, Kok studied at the country's prestigious business school, the Nijenrode Business School. After spending the early part of his career working for unions, Kok was elected to the Lower House of Parliament in 1986 as the parliamentary leader of the leftist Labor Party.
Three years later, he became finance minister of the third government of former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers. He became Prime Minister in 1994, when the Labor Party won 37 seats out of 150 in Parliament, which overthrew Lubbers' Christian Democrats for the first time in its history.
Kok is survived by his wife Rita and three children. Funeral arrangements were not announced immediately.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.
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