Dutch Press Review Tuesday 15 May 2012

Today’s Dutch papers highlight two fresh faces making a bid for political glory and report on the exam-time ordeal of Dutch schoolkids. They also look at political change in France and a bizarre ruling by the highest court in the Netherlands.
Meet Mona: the new face of the Christian Democrats?
Two political challengers are attracting plenty of attention in today’s Dutch papers. First up is Mona Keijzer, who is in the race to become the new Christian Democrat leader.
Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of her. As de Volkskrant points out, “until recently, hardly anyone knew who she was, but now Mona Keijzer is well and truly in the spotlight”. The paper devotes a centre-page spread to the Christian Democrats’ rising star, describing her as “a fresh strategist who knows how to stay well ahead of the crowd”.
Trouw has good news for Keijzer too: the paper notes that her popularity is on the rise and that she’s just been given a ringing endorsement by one of the party’s former ministers, who declares that the lady from local politics “is ready for the big time”.

Meet Tofik: the boy who goes Bam!
At the other end of the political spectrum, hip young parliamentarian Tofik Dibi has launched a surprise bid for the leadership of GreenLeft. It’s all the more surprising since current leader Jolanda Sap has only been in the job for 18 months or so.
The party is struggling in the polls, and Dibi wants to do something about it. In Trouw he promises to deliver a party that’s “sharper, more original and different”. His campaign slogan – “Bam!” – is different to say the least. As the paper’s cartoonist wryly comments “it’s never a dull moment with Tofik”.
In its front-page headline, NRC Handelsblad warns that “the internal struggle is a threat to GreenLeft” and reckons that the most likely outcome of Dibi’s leadership bid is that he’ll end up losing and fuel dissatisfaction with Jolande Sap’s leadership in the process.
Sister paper nrc.next profiles new faces Keijzer and Dibi on its front page but asks, “how new are their ideas?” It reaches the underwhelming conclusion that perhaps it’s more about the packaging than the politics: this “fresh blood” may not be that fresh after all.

Exam time 21st century style
De Volkskrant’s front page features a photo of a row of teenagers sitting at desks in a gym: a girl nervously runs her hands through her hair; the boy behind her stares blankly into space; the girl in front has her head in her hands. Yes, you’ve guessed it: it’s final exam time for around 200,000 secondary school students here in the Netherlands.
AD recounts a few woeful tales of exam-time stress, 21st-century style. It talks to poor Ruben; he was all psyched up for his online exam only to discover that the school’s internet connection was down – he and his fellow examinees were unable to do anything for the first 30 minutes.
Or what about the unfortunate souls sitting their online art exam, who flew into a panic when they clicked on a music question and heard nothing? Some of them assumed there was a bug in the system and left the relevant questions blank. It turns out the music in question was a piece by experimental composer Arnold Schönberg, which starts in silence.
No surprise then that LAKS, the organisation that represents the interests of Dutch schoolkids, received so many complaints on the first day of exams this year that their website couldn’t cope with the volume and promptly crashed.

Goodbye Mr Bling and hello Mr Normal
As gloomy speculation about the fate of Greece rumbles on, today’s papers also look to France, where newly elected president François Hollande takes office today.
AD predicts stormy times ahead for both Hollande and outgoing president Nicolas Sarkozy: while Hollande faces all manner of political headaches, Sarkozy is about to lose his immunity from prosecution – not great news when your name is being mentioned in connection with two major criminal cases.
Trouw notes that Francois “Mr Normal” Hollande is quite a contrast to the “bling bling” of Sarkozy. It points out that his inauguration will be “in keeping with the crisis”, which means “no champagne and Merkel for dessert”: Hollande will be heading straight for Berlin to dine with the German Chancellor.
While their politics may differ, de Volkskrant notes that the two leaders at least share a taste for the simple life. It describes Angela Merkel as the woman who sits down to a nice bowl of lentil soup while juggling billions of euros in financial bailouts. She could yet prove to be a match with Hollande, who the paper calls “the last man without a flatscreen TV”.

Supreme Court rules on nit-picker
Persistence pays! De Telegraaf and AD report on the case of a homeless man who shouted “nit-picker” at the policeman who confiscated his beer. The man was duly convicted of offending an officer of the law but the homeless man was so indignant that he decided to take his case to the highest court in the land.
And sure enough, the Dutch Supreme Court has now ruled that it is not necessarily a punishable offence to call a policeman a “nit-picker”.
It’s probably worth adding at this point that the Dutch for nit-picker – mierenneuker – is a little more graphic than the English, the polite version of the literal translation being “one who has sexual intercourse with an ant”.
De Telegraaf reveals that this isn’t the man’s first legal triumph. Sietze Jan, as he is called, he has a reputation as something of a troublemaker and has had brushes with the law on many occasions.
But, as luck would have it, he has an identical twin called Jan Sietze. The paper reports that they have escaped conviction for all kinds of offences because the police could never be sure which one of them they had arrested!

(ae)