Her parents fled Turkey after the military coup of 1980. And she, who grew up on the outskirts of Amsterdam, ran away from the left-wing parties in which she joined as a youth.
Today Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius, Minister of Justice and star of a brilliant political career, aspires to become the first female head of government in the Netherlands.
"Who would have thought that I, considering where I come from, would be in front of all of you today. A fan of Ajax from Amsterdam here in Rotterdam,” she let loose to delegates of the Dutch liberal party VDD in September when she was proclaimed, without internal opposition, as leader and candidate in the November 22 legislative elections. Everything points to a hotly contested election, but as of now, Yesilgöz-Zegerius is leading the polls. Beyond her Turkish roots, her candidacy is peculiar for several reasons, including the fact that she is a defender of the tightening of migration policies and the only candidate who does not rule out agreeing with the far-right if necessary to form government
Born in Ankara in 1980, Yesilgöz is the daughter of a couple of Kurdish activists who met at university. When he was eight years old he traveled with his mother and sister to the coastal town of Bodrum, where one night they took a boat that took them to the Greek island of Kos. From there they traveled to Athens and, finally, to Amsterdam, where their father, a trade unionist, who had sought asylum in the country of tulips a few years earlier, was waiting for them. The family settled in Amersfoort, a locality with a high percentage of foreign population, where his parents developed intense activism, but settled not in the Turkish neighborhoods, but surrounded by native Dutch people.
He studied Social and Cultural Sciences at the VU University in Amsterdam, where he obtained a master's degree in Cultural Management. Amersfoort City Council, where he started working in 2004, was his springboard into politics, and he has worked on issues such as security, drug policies and the defense of the LGBTI community. He joined the Socialist Partij (ultra-left), then the PVDA (social democrats) and GroenLinks (Greens), but ended up leaving these groups, he explains, because he always felt that, in their ranks, his origin determined everything and he hated his "paternalism".
In the VVD, the party for which she was elected councilor in 2014 and three years later, deputy, it has never been like this, assures this professional of the television sets, in which she has had a long presence, for a long time more relevant than the its political weight. Joking aside, beyond the fact that her husband, from whom she takes her middle name, is part of the board of directors of Ajax, the day her colleagues proclaimed her a candidate, after only two years in the Government , he did not shy away from his foreign origins.
"For me the Netherlands is the most beautiful country in the world. I wasn't born here, but it's where I grew up and where I became who I am. My country, the country of freedom", he claimed before honoring the acting Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, for his 12 years of leadership. Disagreements over migration management were the cause of the fall of her last government and Yesilgöz-Zegerius has signaled that she will defend tougher positions than Rutte. She has been compared to the British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, daughter of immigrants, bulwark against illegal immigration and prone to incendiary rhetoric.
"People worry about the high influx of immigrants, whether it creates problems, whether it is fair to people who have been waiting years for sheltered housing or to genuine refugees, or whether it is realistic that our little country wants to receive everyone who comes. Politicians cannot close our eyes to these concerns", said the new liberal candidate that day. The VDD program calls for a "better management" of immigration and Yesilgöz-Zegerius has given signs of wanting to restrict the reception of economic immigrants to make room for political refugees and appeals to the acute housing problem that the country suffers
Despite the fact that far-right parties have been furious with their origins for criticizing their management (Geert Wilders said he feared for her safety when she was appointed minister, because "obviously" it would be more desirable to see her "under land"), the liberal candidate has said that she does not rule out working with them. "Let's see their projects first. What interests me is who will be at the negotiating table and with which policies." The experience of Rutte's first government, in 2010, with the extreme right, which gave him parliamentary support, ended in fiasco, but Yesilgöz-Zegerius says that he does not rule out anything from the start, just as he does not rule out reaching any voting
The leadership in the polls of the liberal candidate is increasingly disputed by Pieter Omtzigt, from the Christian Democratic orbit. Omtzigt, an MP, is running as an independent with a program focused on the idea of decency and putting Rutte's party to the sword and wall over the scandal, uncovered by himself, that brought down his previous government , in 2021: the false accusations against families – mostly immigrants – of fraudulently collecting social benefits. The election debates, analysts say, could be decisive this year in deciding who wins on November 22.
