Mark Rutte

After the resignation of Jozias van Aartsen, the VVD having lost in the 2006 Dutch municipal election, the party held an internal election for lijsttrekker, in which Rutte competed against Rita Verdonk and Jelleke Veenendaal. On 31 May 2006, it was announced that Mark Rutte would be the next lijsttrekker of the VVD. He was elected by 51.5% of party members. Rutte's candidacy was backed by the VVD leadership, including the party board, and many prominent politicians such as Frank de Grave, former minister of Defence, Ivo Opstelten, the mayor of Rotterdam and Ed Nijpels, the Queen's Commissioner of Friesland. The Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the VVD's youth wing, of which he had been chair, also backed him. During the elections he promised "to make the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy a party for everyone and not just of the elite". His youthful appearance has been likened to the successful former leader of the Labour Party, Wouter Bos.

Rutte said that the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party was a group that "the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy could do business with".[8] He had also stated that with the social security ideas of the Labour Party, which he called too socialist, it was unlikely that the VVD would cooperate or form a coalition after the elections.

Rutte with Henk Kamp (left) and Rita Verdonk (right) during the campaign in 2006

For the 2006 general election, the VVD campaign with Rutte as leader did not get off to a good start; he received criticism from within his own party.[9] Rutte was said to be overshadowed by his own party members Rita Verdonk and Gerrit Zalm, as well as being unable to penetrate between Wouter Bos and Jan Peter Balkenende, who were generally seen as the prime candidates to become the next Prime Minister. On 27 November, it became known that Rita Verdonk managed to obtain more votes than Mark Rutte; he obtained 553,200 votes against Verdonk's 620,555.[9][10] After repeated criticisms by Verdonk on VVD policy, Rutte expelled her from the party's parliamentary faction on 13 September 2007.[11]

In the 2010 general election, Rutte was once again the lijsttrekker for the VVD. It won 31 seats to become the largest party in the House of Representatives for the first time ever.[12] A long period of negotiations followed, with several personalities succeeding each other, being appointed by Queen Beatrix in order to find out what coalition could be formed. Efforts to form a coalition between the VVD, CDA and PvdA failed. Instead the only possibility appeared to be a center-right coalition of liberals and Christian Democrats (CDA), with the outside support of the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders.

Rutte on his first day as Prime Minister on 14 October 2010

Rutte reading the Financial Times on board a government plane

After securing support for a coalition between the VVD and CDA, Rutte was appointed as formateur on 8 October 2010; Rutte announced his prospective cabinet, including Maxime Verhagen from the CDA as Deputy Prime Minister. On 14 October, Queen Beatrix formally invited Rutte to form a government, and later that day, Rutte presented his first cabinet to Parliament. The government was confirmed in office by a majority of one, and Rutte was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, becoming the first Liberal to serve in the role since Pieter Cort van der Linden in 1918.[12] He also became the second-youngest Prime Minister in Dutch history, after Ruud Lubbers.

After victory at the 2011 Dutch provincial elections, the VVD secured its status as the lead party within the government. In March 2012, seeking to comply with European Union requirements to reduce the nation's deficit, Rutte began talks with his coalition partners on a budget which would cut 16 billion euros of spending. However, PVV leader Geert Wilders withdrew his party's informal support from the government on 21 April, stating that the proposed budget would hurt economic growth.[13] This led to the early collapse of the government, and Rutte submitted his resignation to Queen Beatrix on the afternoon of 23 April.[14] His government had lasted for 558 days, making it one of the shortest Dutch cabinets since World War II.[13]

Rutte with British Prime Minister David Cameron on 21 February 2014

Rutte with Donald Tusk, Robert Fico and Jean-Claude Juncker

Ahead of the 2012 general election, Rutte was named the VVD's lijsttrekker for the third time. At the election in September, the VVD won an additional 10 seats, remaining the largest party in the House of Representatives; the CDA and PVV saw their number of seats fall significantly.[15] The VVD quickly negotiated a coalition agreement with the Labour Party, and on 5 November 2012, the Second Rutte cabinet was confirmed by a vote in Parliament, seeing Rutte returned as Prime Minister of a VVD-PvdA coalition government.

In 2014, The Hague held a Group of Seven special meeting after the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in Ukraine with 193 Dutch nationals aboard. During the municipal elections of 2014, the VVD finished third behind local parties and the CDA; at the European Parliament election the same year, it finished fourth. At the 2015 Dutch provincial elections, however, the VVD remained the largest party in the province's legislatures with about 15% of the vote, but lost 23 seats in the States-Provincial.

In April 2016, Rutte was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President of the World Bank Group Jim Yong Kim to the High-Level Panel on Water. Co-chaired by Mauritius President Ameenah Gurib and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the joint United Nations-World Bank Group panel was set up to accelerate the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6).[16] That month also saw the 2016 Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum. In November 2016 the House of Representatives approved by 132 votes against 18 a ban on the Islamic burqa in some public spaces including schools and hospitals, a bill supported by the VVD.[17]

Rutte with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on 1 April 2016

Rutte's second cabinet completed its full four-year term without collapsing or losing a vote of no confidence, becoming the first cabinet to do so since the First Kok cabinet from 1994 to 1998.[18]

Rutte with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on 18 July 2019

The VVD went into the 2017 general election with a small lead over the PVV in most opinion polls. Rutte was judged to have managed the 2017 Dutch–Turkish diplomatic incident well according to similar polling. While the VVD lost 8 seats in the general election, the PvdA lost 29, and these seats were split between a number of other parties, leaving the VVD the largest party in parliament for the third successive election. After holding coalition discussions, Rutte negotiated a grand coalition with the CDA, D66 and CU; he presented his third cabinet on 26 October 2017, and was sworn in as Prime Minister for a third term. The 225 days between the general election and the installation of the government was the longest such period in Dutch history.

The coalition agreement's plan to abolish the 15% dividend tax (providing the state €1.4 billion per year) proved highly unpopular, as it had not been mentioned in any party's program, and it later appeared that major Dutch companies like Shell and Unilever had secretly been lobbying for that measure.[19]

In July 2018, Rutte became a topic in the international news because of what was considered a "typical Dutch bluntness", by interrupting and explicitly contradicting the American president Donald Trump during a meeting with the press at the Oval Office in the White House.[20][21]

Rutte's third government provided materials to the Levant Front rebel group in Syria.[22] In September 2018, the Dutch public prosecution department declared the Levant Front to be a "criminal organisation of terrorist intent", describing it as a "salafist and jihadistic" group that "strives for the setting up of the caliphate".[23]

On 21 March 2018 the Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act referendum was held. It resulted in a rejection. At the 2019 provincial elections, Rutte's VVD suffered a blow following the victory of newcomer Forum for Democracy (FvD).