“I often wondered where I could have the most impact,” Member of Parliament Esmah Lahlah (GroenLinks-PvdA) said this week, somewhat uncomfortably, to journalists in the House of Representatives. She said she wants to work “close to the people” again. Before she became a Member of Parliament, Lahlah was a popular councilor in Tilburg. “So I think it’s fantastic that I get such an opportunity in Amsterdam.”
PRO welcomed Lahlah this week as an alderman in Amsterdam. She therefore leaves the House of Representatives prematurely with the stigma of someone who has repeatedly tried to leave national politics. During her time in Parliament, Lahlah applied for posts in local government twice before: for the mayor of Tilburg and that of Delft.
In Amsterdam, Lahlah has been nominated as alderman for Education, Youth Care and Youth Work. She started in the House of Representatives after the November 2023 elections, as number two for PvdA-GroenLinks. In the elections of October last year, she was again in second place and was elected with 113,000 preferential votes.
During the Schoof cabinet, it was striking that faction leader Frans Timmermans and Lahlah said little to each other
The impact that Lahlah said he was looking for did not become visible in the House of Representatives. Although she was the number two in the party, she often did not sit in the front row during debates in the main hall and other faction members mainly did the talking. When Frans Timmermans was leader of the GroenLinks-PvdA party, during the Schoof cabinet, it was striking that he and Lahlah said little to each other.
In an Instagram post announcing her move, Lahlah seems to acknowledge that she was out of place in The Hague. She writes that the House of Representatives is a “special place” and: “At the same time, in recent years I have felt increasingly strongly where my own strength and conviction are most effective: close to people.” In an interview with Het Parool this week she denied that The Hague had disappointed her and said that she found her work there “super educational”. In return for NRC Lahlah says that she has “nothing further to add”.
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Esmah Lahlah at the presentation of the coalition agreement in Amsterdam on June 3.
Photo Dingena Mol/ANP
Applications
Lahlah had previously made attempts to leave The Hague. Last October it emerged that she had applied for the office of mayor of Tilburg, while she had also stood as a candidate for the House of Representatives and had not shared her application internally with GroenLinks-PvdA. It later turned out that she had also applied for mayor of Delft. When this leaked, party leader Jesse Klaver said that Lahlah would stay “with us in The Hague for this entire period.” Her premature switch to Amsterdam politics therefore means a loss of face for Klaver. On Tuesday he responded nonchalantly to questions from journalists about the switch. Klaver said he regrets that, but that it is Lahlah’s own choice.
Lahlah did stand out in the plenary hall of the House of Representatives during the debate on the government statement in July 2024, although not on her own initiative. The then PVV minister Marjolein Faber had retweeted a message in which Lahlah was called “a headscarf”. The then Prime Minister Dick Schoof was challenged to turn to Lahlah. He said: “It doesn’t matter to me that you are wearing a headscarf. You are just a human being to me.” Lahlah was not actually a speaker in the debate, but stood up anyway. “As a woman wearing a headscarf, let me be clear about one thing: for me this is a personal, conscious and free choice. For all girls who wear a headscarf and feel touched by what is happening here: don’t let anything fool you, you can achieve everything you want.”
Before she entered national politics, Lahlah was alderman for Social Security, Equality of Opportunity and Talent Development in Tilburg from 2018 to 2023. In that role she was visible and loved. She had the image of an enthusiastic director who was close to the citizen. In 2021 she was named by trade magazine Domestic Administration was named Best Local Driver and a carnival song was even released about her.
Behind the scenes
In The Hague, Lahlah was especially popular behind the scenes. Fellow MPs emphasize how loved she was there. But she hasn’t moved any mountains behind the scenes either; those same colleagues have noticeable difficulty in listing many concrete successes.
“What characterizes her most is that she is so close to the people who matter,” says party member Luc Stultiens. He is part of the permanent group of MPs that deals with Social Affairs and Employment, just like Lahlah was. According to Stultiens, even after her transition to national politics, she still made many working visits to people who were less fortunate. “A lot of people felt seen by her,” says party member Mariëtte Patijn, who also knows Lahlah from the faction and the permanent Chamber group. Stultiens: “She was also very involved internally. She always wanted to know how everyone was doing.”
Member of Parliament Sarath Hamstra (CDA) worked extensively with Lahlah on topics such as poverty, debt and the participation law. “She was averse to political games: someone who says the same thing in the debate hall as she does behind the scenes.”
When it comes to concrete successes, colleagues mainly remember amendments to laws that concern the government’s duty to actively inform citizens of the help they are entitled to. Patijn: “And when you see what else she has tried to put on the agenda for people on welfare… But no matter how hard she worked, it is sometimes so difficult in The Hague to really mean something to the people.”
