Record numbers of women to be in new government in Holland

Women to fill 14 of 29 ministers and secretaries of state roles

Kajsa Ollongren is a Dutch-Swedish politician who is in the ‘D66’ Dutch party (ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Record numbers of women will be in the new government in Holland with women making up just over half of ministers and secretaries of state.

Women will fill 14 of the 29 ministers and secretaries of state roles, with 10 of the 20 ministers in government being women.

Kajsa Ollongren, who is presently the minister of the interior and second deputy PM of the Netherlands, will swap roles to become the new defence minister in the four-party coalition which will be sworn in next Monday.

While Wopke Hoekstra will be the new foreign minister and Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius will soon be the minister of justice and security.

The prime minister, however, is a man - Mark Rutte - who has been in office since 2010.

In the UK, women make up 34 per cent of MPs in the House of Commons, with some 223 out of a total of 649 MPs being women.

News of Holland’s government comes as Dutch riot police went head to head with anti-lockdown protesters in the capital of Amsterdam on Sunday after hundreds of demonstrators linked to far-right parties ignored restrictions blocking groups assembling.

One protester could be seen brandishing a “Trump 2024” flag at the demonstration.

Protesters had assembled to voice their anger at rules rolled out by the Dutch government in mid-December to curtail the growing spread of Covid as health services became increasingly overwhelmed.

Police used dogs during the anti-lockdown demonstration, with at least one person from the protest believed to have been detained.