Dutch Cabinet Collapses Over Infighting

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende talks to the Dutch Parliament at the end of the urgent debate on Thursday June 29, 2006. The Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced Thursday his government will resign after his coalition split over the unorthodoxnaturalization of Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her resignation last month. The political turmoil in The Hague began last month when Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, known for her hard-line immigration policies, threatened to revoke the passport of lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali admitted falsifying her name to escape an arranged marriage when she applied for asylum in 1992. (AP Photo/Martijn Beekman) (Martijn Beekman - AP)

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- The Dutch prime minister and his Cabinet resigned Friday after a split in its ranks over the citizenship case of a Somali-born lawmaker.

The collapse of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's three-year-old conservative government underscored divisions among the Dutch about whether their strict immigration policies have gone too far or not far enough.

Balkenende submitted his government's resignation to Queen Beatrix, who will meet with an adviser and all the parties in parliament to decide whether the prime minister has enough support to continue with a minority government or schedule new elections as soon as possible.

Either way, elections were expected by the end of the year, rather than in May 2007 as scheduled.

The political turmoil began last month when the immigration minister known for her hard-line policies threatened to revoke the passport of Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali after the legislator admitted falsifying her name to escape an arranged marriage when she applied for asylum in 1992.

Hirsi Ali, 36, resigned her seat, but parliament ordered Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk to reconsider her decision. On Tuesday, Verdonk reversed it, having discovered a loophole: Under Somali law, Hirsi Ali's false name was technically legal because it was her grandfather's family name.

The governing coalition split Thursday as one party defected in a stinging rebuke of Verdonk for her clumsy handling of the citizenship case.

Politicians of all stripes immediately began campaigning in anticipation of new elections.

"I support honest politics and looking to the future, doing what you promise, taking care that you make the Netherlands stronger," Balkenende told reporters Thursday after announcing his decision.

Opposition leader Wouter Bos said Balkenende's failure to keep his Cabinet together showed a lack of leadership.

"The people are longing to show that they want a different kind of policy, and now they'll get the chance to show it," Bos said.

Hirsi Ali, whose name before leaving Somalia 14 years ago was Hirsi Magan, became an international figure after the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fanatic over a film that criticized the treatment of women under Islam. Hirsi Ali wrote the script.

Van Gogh's murder led to an anti-immigrant backlash, including the burning of mosques and a crackdown on radical Muslims. Hirsi Ali went into hiding for months, and still lives under 24-hour police protection, now in the United States.

Verdonk faced criticism after Hirsi Ali signed a statement acknowledging that she had "misled" Verdonk by saying she had lied about her name.

"To ask someone to sign a statement like that, just to save your own face ... it's not worthy of a minister," said Wouter Bos, leader of the opposition Labor party.

Hirsi Ali, meanwhile, has accepted a job in Washington with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank.