A new Dutch Cabinet under Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende enjoying only minority support in Parliament prepared for office on Thursday to take the country to early elections in November.
The new Cabinet, comprising all but two of the members of Balkenende’s last administration that resigned last week, is to be sworn in on Friday, according to an official announcement in The Hague.
The two members of the small left-liberal D66 party, which withdrew its support for hard-line Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk and brought the government down, are being replaced by former junior ministers, one from Balkenende’s Christian Democrats (CDA) and the other from his right-liberal VVD ally.
The D66, along with other small parties on the right, has agreed to support the minority CDA-VVD government in its main business — passing the 2007 Budget in September.
According to a report on Thursday in the daily Volkskrant, a decision will also be taken allowing continued Dutch participation in the Joint Strike Force fighter being designed and built in the United States to avoid the potential loss of contracts to Dutch industry.
The new coalition, the third consecutive Dutch government to be led by Balkenende, has the support of just 71 of the 150 members of the Lower House of Parliament.
The largest opposition party, the Labour Party, had pressed for Balkenende to carry on only in an acting capacity and for elections to be held in September.
The new government’s programme is to be presented to Parliament for debate on Friday afternoon.
Verdonk performed an embarrassing U-turn late last month in rescinding an earlier decision to strip Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali of her citizenship.
Hirsi Ali, a fellow-member of the VVD, resigned her seat in Parliament in mid-May following a controversy over the falsification of her name and circumstances when she applied for asylum in 1992 and citizenship five years later. — Sapa-dpa