15 August 2008

Day of farewells for the Netherlands
It's a day for farewells in the Dutch press, with three very different public figures bowing out of the limelight for very different reasons.

GreenLeft MP Wijnand Duyvendak
The most high profile departure is GreenLeft MP Wijnand Duyvendak, whose activist past has placed him at the centre of a storm of controversy all week.

To quote De Telegraaf, "the inevitable has happened" and today's front pages feature a very glum Duyvendak announcing his resignation.

GreenLeft leader Femke Halsema describes the MP's resignation as "a terrible blow to the party" and says she will miss "a colleague of extraordinary integrity" and an "unparalleled expert" on environmental issues.

Others are less forgiving, however. Trouw comments that "It wasn't his image but his beating around the bush that finished him off" and criticises Duyvendak for playing the activist card while trying to distance himself from his former comrades.

De Telegraaf shows no mercy. "No one should be shedding a single tear about the departure of this man," the paper fulminates. The paper also dismisses "cowardly" Duyvendak's claim that he's "not the same man he was back in the 1980s" as "the feigned integrity of someone who's been driven into a tight corner".

Swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband
By way of contrast, the papers can't find enough superlatives to pay tribute to swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband, who has announced his retirement after coming a disappointing fifth in the Olympic men's 100m freestyle final.

"The departure of a perfect Olympian" says AD, featuring a heartwarming snap of Van den Hoogenband receiving a comforting cuddle from his granny.

"A regal abdication" is the headline in NRC Handelsblad, who describes him as "the greatest swimmer in Dutch history" - and with justification given his medal haul of three gold, two silver and two bronze from four Olympic Games.

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