Popular Amsterdam MP resigns to continue teaching, training kids

PvdA parliamentarian Tanja Jadnanansing will not be returning to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, after the elections 2017. She wants to focus on her true passion - teaching kids and young people, Het Parool reports. In the Tweede Kamer, Jadnanansing worked on the education portfolio. She also teaches at a vocational high school in Amsterdam every Monday. "I started thinking: what makes me happy? That is education and kids. Without politics, I would never have known it." she said to the newspaper, explaining her decision not to make herself available for re-election. She will finish her term in the Kamer and then look for a job at a high school somewhere in the Randstad. Jadnanansing emphasized that her party's current position in the polls - between 8 and 12 seats, compared the 38 seats the PvdA got in the last elections - has nothing to do with her decisions. "In politics there's always a chance that you don't come back at the next elections. For me this was a difficult decision. I'm not turning my back on the PvdA; it stays my club." The 49-year-old Amsterdam politician entered the Kamer in 2010 at number 28 on the PvdA's list. In the 2012 elections she received a remarkably high spot on her party's candidate list - she stood in 4th place, with only party leader Diederik Samsom, Minister Ronald Plasterk and State Secretary Jetta Klijnsma above her.