Mpanza Bamenga (37) and Femke Zeedijk (49) from Eindhoven were sworn in Wednesday as new members of the Lower House. Bamenga is now an MP for D66 and Zeedijk for newcomer NSC.
The two newcomers already met their future colleagues in The Hague and shook hands with a lot of them. Bamenga is looking forward to getting started. He also brought along some personal items. “I have a newspaper article here that someone framed for me. It’s about something I accomplished this year. I successfully litigated against the fact that customs checks sometimes take skin colour into account. After all, that is not allowed!”
As a former refugee from the Congo as well as an expert by experience, Bamenga is going to be tenacious on an issue that is familiar to him: fighting ethnic profiling. “I am going to tackle discrimination and racism. Other focus areas are integration, foreign trade, development cooperation, and infrastructure and water management.”
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Femke Zeedijk was already familiar with numbers as a mathematician. She’s going to work primarily on economic affairs and international trade. Just as she first advised the management of ASML for ten years, she is not going to take any chances as a member of parliament.
“What’s very nice in our group is that we all want to focus on substance. So that’s definitely how I’m going to approach it. First, dig well into the content and examine what the real possible choices are for the Netherlands. We can then make an informed assessment.”
With three children of young adult age, mother Zeedijk has received the necessary reactions: “Some think I work too hard and others find it inspiring. So indeed I sometimes get candid feedback. Oh well, I like that.”
Daan de Kort from Veldhoven was also sworn in. He returns to the Lower House on behalf of the VVD.
Source: Studio040
Translated by Chaitali Sengupta
