Suriname's chaotic democracy just chose its first woman president

His finger ink-stained from voting, Wagirin Tjokrosetiko, a 62-year-old driver of Javanese descent, has a simple reason for wanting a woman to run Suriname, a multi-ethnic former Dutch colony of under 700,000 people on the north-eastern shoulder of South America. 'Male presidents only fill their pockets,' he says.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Spectator

2 days ago

• Spectator

Is Dutch tolerance dying?

Campaigners across southern Europe are protesting against 'touristification'. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, wealthy expats are in the firing line. Businesses in Amsterdam could be asked to foot the bill for local housing if they employ highly-skilled internationals. Alongside paranoia about asylum seekers, there is a rising feeling that expats and even holidaymakers are unwelcome in parts of the continent. The Netherlands was once an outward-looking, tolerant, trader nation. Is that still the case? It's not much fun to live in a place – or even visit somewhere – that resents your presence, especially if you have bothered to learn the local language and swallowed the high tax rates that fund northern Europe's generous social benefits. But this 'me-first' sentiment in Europe is great news for London and anywhere else in the market for scarce global talent. Post-Brexit 'trading volumes shifting to Amsterdam appear to be here to stay,' Dutch financial paper Het Financieele Dagblad jubilantly announced earlier this year. The paper claimed that 'Amsterdam is now bigger than London'. In the aftermath of Britain's departure from the EU, there certainly appeared to be some evidence that London's dominance as a global financial centre might be at risk. But – unlike the years after the 2016 EU referendum, in which the European Medicines Agency relocated to Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency loudly boasted about winning businesses, jobs and investments – there has been a change of tone. The Netherlands was once an outward-looking, tolerant, trader nation that advertised for foreign students and was proud of its English-language proficiency. Is that still the case? Last week, Amsterdam council voted to pass a motion to ask international businesses based in the Dutch capital to contribute to solving a general housing shortage and pay for programmes to get their 'lonely' foreign workers to integrate. The policy, 'Make Amsterdam your home', sounded friendly enough, but the message behind it was anything but. 'In short, internationalisation is part of our city but it also brings challenges, such as driving up house prices, the emergence of a parallel world and the transformation of neighbourhoods, for example because more and more English is spoken,' it declared. Foreign companies, said the accompanying Labour press release, should be expected to give something back. As the Netherlands remembers 80 years of liberation from the Nazis – thanks to Allied troops, speaking that awful language of English – foreigners are being blamed for driving up house prices and sabotaging social cohesion. The facts are less important than nationalist gut feeling: the Dutch government offers 110,000 highly-skilled migrants (including footballers) a temporary tax break to compensate for its high income taxes. But despite the expats, who don't even have a vote, benefitting our country, they are far from popular. It doesn't seem to matter that a government analysis found the tax break raises €128.5million (£110 million) a year, has a 'very modest impact' on house prices and 97 per cent of the highly-skilled professionals work full time, compared with 52 per cent of the Dutch. Nor that Statistics Netherlands research suggests that Germans and Brits lead the least segregated lives and wealthy locals the most. The Dutch government recently collapsed in a row over asylum created by far-right veteran Geert Wilders. Universities are scrapping English-language courses and capping international student numbers. Now, Amsterdam councillors are pointing the finger at internationals for the consequences of the Netherlands' part-time lifestyle, lack of house-building and preference for single-person households. Meanwhile, the country continues to ignore calls from the European Commission, Dutch central bank and its own economists to reduce home owner tax breaks that inflate its housing market. It's easy – if absurd – to vilify other people and treat hard-working foreigners who do the jobs you can't or won't do as 'exploiting' your system. But the result is obvious: when places like the Netherlands become hostile to international business and talent, it will go elsewhere. The failure of Dutch tolerance is a marvellous opportunity, in other words, for a place like London – where you can be judged by what you can do instead of by your name; where a finance minister doesn't have to admit the tax office has a problem with 'institutional racism'; and a government doesn't fall after falsely accusing some 40,000 families of childcare benefits fraud. Non-doms might not be welcome in the UK – and Wise, the British fintech, might be leaving for New York – but filthy-rich talent is not a problem in London. Some Dutch experts, at least, recognise that their golden age is tarnishing. To the concern of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW), the country dropped from 4th in 2021 to 10th this year in the IMD's world competitiveness ranking. The Netherlands might be ahead of the UK (29th) with the help of its international trade, but tax policy is rated a dismal 67th – well under Britain. The general-director of the VNO-NCW Focco Vijselaar tells The Spectator that there is cause for concern. 'For quite some time, we have been pointing out the concrete rot in our business climate,' he said. 'And you see the cracks in these kinds of lists. If you look at international investment, we are at 41st place, an unprecedentedly low spot. We are struggling with major bottlenecks in the Netherlands: a housing market that is locked down, nitrogen pollution problems and high energy prices.' Flip-flopping on highly-skilled migrant tax breaks does not help, he added: 'We need the expats.' Liberal democrats in Amsterdam are also worried about scapegoating the international community. 'That social cohesion is under pressure is not solely due to the expats,' said Democrats 66 economics spokesman Erik Schmit last week. 'Housing prices are rising: it is not proven that this is solely due to the international community…As a government, we have other priorities.' But after constant changes to the 30 per cent highly skilled migrant tax-free allowance and the removal of its non-dom ruling, the Netherlands is increasingly out of favour. New foreign student numbers have plunged, threatening various courses. Data from jobs site Indeed shows a drop of 48 per cent in applications from India and 40 per cent from the UK this year. Emigration appears to have peaked and highly-skilled migrant numbers are tumbling. Britain might have creaking infrastructure and complex regulation, but it is remarkably open and far less corrupt than many of its neighbours. If the Dutch want to drive out innovators, talent and factories with high energy prices, punitive taxes and cultural suspicion – and if southern Europe is busy fighting with tourists – other cities have a chance. Now is the time to declare Britain open for business.

Fashion United

6 days ago

• Fashion United

Dutch political party says European sustainability rules threaten competitiveness

The Dutch political party, VVD, has sent a strong message to Brussels. On June 12, members of parliament Thom van Campen and Claire Martens-America submitted a motion to the House of Representatives stating that two European directives concerning sustainability hinder European businesses from competing with businesses outside the EU, such as those in China and the US. The directives in question are the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The motion urged the Dutch government to advocate for the withdrawal of these directives. The Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) was the first to report on this. The CSRD requires large companies to report extensively on the sustainability of their business operations. The CSDDD (also known as the 'anti-blind eye law' or 'supply chain responsibility and liability') holds companies accountable for abuses in their global supply chains. Both directives aim to promote corporate social responsibility, but according to the motion's authors, "these rules threaten European competitiveness and put unnecessary pressure on businesses". The FD noted that the motion represents a significant shift in the VVD's stance, as the party previously supported European sustainability directives. Critics, including civil society organisations, worry that such a position allows companies to ignore issues like child labour, pollution, and poor working conditions in their production chains. Netherlands joins France and Germany The Netherlands follows other EU member states that have opposed the legislation, including Germany and France. Last month, French president Emmanuel Macron joined German CDU party leader Friedrich Merz in calling on the European Union to abolish a directive on corporate sustainability. Whether the motion will garner enough support in the House of Representatives to influence government policy towards Brussels remains to be seen. The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, June 17. The discussion regarding the balance between corporate social responsibility and economic competitiveness is once again high on the political agenda. This article was translated to English using an AI tool. FashionUnited uses AI language tools to speed up translating (news) articles and proofread the translations to improve the end result. This saves our human journalists time they can spend doing research and writing original articles. Articles translated with the help of AI are checked and edited by a human desk editor prior to going online. If you have questions or comments about this process email us at info@

The Independent

12-06-2025

• The Independent

Dutch center-left parties unite to challenge the right in a historic merger

Two center-left Dutch political parties agreed Thursday to a formal merger, just months away from a general election where they will seek to turn the political tide in the Netherlands away from right-wing populism. Members of the Labor Party and Green Left both voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move to form a single new party. The parties have been working together in parliament for years. Now they will go to the polls as a single entity known by its Dutch name, Groen Links-PvdA. A new party with a new name will follow next year, the parties said after the vote. 'This is a historic moment. This step shows that we, as parties, believe in the power of cooperation, because we can achieve so much more together than apart,' the chair of the Labor Party, Esther-Mirjam Sent, said in a statement. Green Left chair, Katinka Eikelenboom, added that her party's members 'choose with full conviction for cooperation and renewal. We are building a broad, green and social people's party that is ready for the future.' The Oct. 29 election for all 150 seats in the lower house of the Dutch parliament was triggered when right-wing anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders pulled his ministers out of the four-party ruling coalition in a dispute over the pace of reforms to implement tough new measures to rein in migration. The remaining three parties remain in power in a caretaker capacity under Prime Minister Dick Schoof until a new government is formed. The Labor Party is led in parliament by former European Commission climate chief Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister. The two center-left parties currently trail Wilders' Party for Freedom in Dutch polling.