Poll: Majority Backs Motion Against Muslim State Secretaries
THE HAGUE, 27/02/07 - A majority of the Dutch seem to be backing a motion of no confidence in State Secretaries Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak. They agree with the motion that Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders will put forward on Thursday.
Aboutaleb and Albayrak were appointed State Secretaries of Social Affairs and Justice last week. As well as their Dutch passports, Aboutaleb also holds a Moroccan, and Albayrak, a Turkish passport. This could land them up in a conflict of loyalties, Wilders believes.
This weekend, Wilders said in newspaper NRC Handelsblad he would put forward a motion of no confidence in the two Labour (PvdA) state secretaries on Thursday, during the Lower House debate on the coalition accord. The entire Lower House is furious about this.
But radio programme Standpunt presented its listeners yesterday with the statement: 'The motion of no confidence against the state secretaries is correct.' Of the 10,000 voters, 59 percent agreed and 41 percent disagreed. If the motion were adopted - which will not happen - the House would implicitly be demanding the state secretaries' resignation.
Christian democratic (CDA) MP Mirjam Sterk has called Wilders' motion "vulgar politics." She sees no reason whatever to doubt the loyalty of the two junior ministers. At a party congress Saturday, Vice-Premier and ChristenUnie leader Andre Rouvoet termed Wilders' motion "beyond parliamentary standards of decency." PvdA and the conservatives (VVD) will also reject the motion.
Albayrak can but does not want to give up her Turkish passport. Morocco on the other hand does not allow Aboutaleb to hand in his document, but "then he should just be a state secretary in Morocco," in Wilders' view. He "does not want to live in a country where sometime perhaps six or seven ministers will be followers of Islam."
Pertinent Links:
1) Poll: Majority Backs Motion Against Muslim State Secretaries
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment