VVD leader distressed over PVV candidate for Asylum & Immigration Minister

VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz also has doubts about the new candidate minister, Marjolein Faber, who the PVV has put forward. Faber is “not without controversy,” according to Yeşilgöz. She expressed these concerns to party leader Geert Wilders and the formateur, she said before the Council of Ministers on Friday.

Faber is the new candidate for the new post of Minister of Asylum and Migration after Gidi Markuszower’s candidacy was withdrawn. This happened because he failed the intelligence and security service’s background screening.

On Thursday, Wilders briefly told Yeşilgöz that Markuszower was no longer a candidate minister due to the content of the AIVD investigation into him. It is not known exactly what emerged. But the AVID did label him an “integrity risk” years ago. Wilders then removed Markuszower from the PVV’s electoral list. The loyal PVV member later became a Senator and then a parliamentarian. MP Markuszower was also once arrested for illegal possession of weapons.

The VVD leader, who will soon exit her post as Minister of Justice and Security, would not specify those statements Faber made which caused Yeşilgöz to question the nomination. Faber has been in the news several times in recent years.

In 2019, Faber wrote a social media post claiming “a reliable source” told her that the perpetrator of a stabbing in Groningen had a North African appearance and an aversion to beer. That allegation did not at all match up with witness statements. Faber, then a member of the Senate, insisted that her tweet was accurate.

In 2015, she also 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. Faber was the leader of the PVV provincial faction at the time. It later turned out that Faber’s son had also created the website for the PVV faction in the Senate, where Faber was also the party leader. The issue ultimately had no political consequences for her.

D66 leader Rob Jetten earlier said he found it “bizarre that this man was nominated at all,” with reference to Markuszower. Aside from the investigation by the security services, his statements as a parliamentarian should have prevented the PVV member from ever having a chance at the job, Jetten said.

He also took blamed Yeşilgöz and NSC party leader Pieter Omtzigt for the chaos around the Cabinet formation. “What I find most worrying is that Yeşilgöz and Omtzigt accept that several people are now being nominated for a ministerial post when they absolutely do not meet the high integrity requirements that they themselves agreed on in their baseline.” It is not yet clear which other candidate ministers Jetten was referring to with that remark

For the time being, Markuszower will remain as a Member of Parliament. Jetten also has concerns about that because of its importance. If there are concerns about a possible ministerial role, “then I assume that the same questions also apply to membership of the Tweede Kamer.”

Yet he does not want to raise “too many barriers,” because it is a great asset that people can become representatives of the people when they earn enough votes. But if someone appears to be impressionable, “then you have to be able to take action against that,” said Jetten. That includes those in Parliament.