Rabat - Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam has been voted the most popular politician in the Netherlands.
Rabat – Ahmed Aboutaleb, the Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam has been voted the most popular politician in the Netherlands.
According to a research involving 11,000 people for news agency ANP and whose findings have been reported by numerous Dutch media outlets, the Moroccan-Dutch politician of the Labour Party scored 7.49 out of 10 in the popularity poll featuring 12 Dutch politicians.
Bottom of the poll is Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam and anti-immigration PVV Party, who scored less than 3 out of 10.
The 53-year-old who became the first Moroccan to take over a major European city came ahead of Amsterdam’s Mayor Eberhard van der Laan, Arno Brok (Dordrecht), Henri Lenferink (Leiden), Peter den Oudstern (Groningen), Peter Van der Velden (Berda) and Jan van Zanen (Utrecht).
The authors of the research said that Aboutaleb, the son of an Imam who came to the Netherlands at the age of 15, “speaks everyone’s language”, and that despite his left leanings on social and economic issues, he remains a hardliner on radicalization and the people who don’t like the Dutch way of life.
In December 2014, Aboutaleb was nominated the “Dutch of the Year” by Elsevier Magazine.
