Dutch-Israeli MP fails background check and will not become Asylum & Migration Minister

PVV parliamentarian Gidi Markuszower will not become the Minister of Asylum and Migration on the expected first Cabinet of Prime Minister Dick Schoof. Markuszower, who is a member of the far-right PVV party, failed the security screening conducted by Dutch civilian intelligence service AIVD. The disclosure about the Tel Aviv-born MP, who was once arrested for illegal possession of weapons, was made by PVV leader Geert Wilders on Thursday evening.

Their colleague, Marjolein Faber, will take Markuszower's place. Markuszower was also expected to be named the PVV's deputy prime minister. Wilders did not indicate whether Faber will also become deputy prime minister. The PVV leader has informed Cabinet formation talks leader Richard van Zwol of his decision.

Wilders previously pushed Markuszower aside in 2010 by removing him from the party's election ballot. This happened after Ernst Hirsch Ballin informed the PVV leader that the AIVD labeled him an "integrity risk."

That year, Ballin served as the Minister of Justice and Security, and briefly as the Minister of Interior Affairs. Nevertheless, Markuszower later became a member of the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch senate, and then a member of the Tweede Kamer.

Faber, born in 1960, represents the PVV in the Tweede Kamer on issues related to the Ministry of Justice and Security. She only just became a PVV representative serving in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament. She took her seat in December after simultaneously serving as a senator in the Eerste Kamer and Gelderland provincial council member for 12 years. She led the PVV senate faction for 10 of those years, and the Gelderland provincial faction for the full duration of her time there.

In 2015, she came under fire when it emerged that she had paid her son's company to manage the PVV Gelderland website with money from the PVV faction's budget. It later turned out that her son had also created the website for the PVV faction in the Eerste Kamer. The issue ultimately had no political consequences for Faber.