It is quite disappointing for Carmen, Amrish, Adilson, Michelle and Luurt. It is March 10, 2026, Carola Schouten has been mayor for a year and a half — and there is still no housing for starters, no speed bumps and the paving stones are loose. How is it possible that the new mayor has done nothing about this? Well, mainly because she doesn’t go over that.
Last Thursday, Mayor Carola Schouten was installed as the new mayor in front of the Rotterdam city council. She takes up her office after Ahmed Aboutaleb was allowed to wear the chain of office of the port city for almost 16 years. Of course expectations are high. And the media attention. The country’s largest public broadcaster also made an article about the prospects.
With a little human interest, someone in the editorial office must have thought of it. Five cheerful Rotterdammers tell us what they think Schouten should work on first: speed bumps, paving stones, speeding drivers and housing. And do something about the bombings.
The disappointment is ingrained in those expectations. It’s very simple: the mayor is not about road safety or housing construction. In our system, we were the first to place such political responsibilities with the municipal council, the highest administrative body of the municipality. Its decisions are prepared and implemented by the council, but the first thing you should look at is the aldermen. As portfolio holders, they bear greater responsibility.
Mayors have a modest role in this. Or rather: very little to say. If they are about anything, it is about the process. Or ‘are we doing things right’, instead of ‘are we doing the right things’. Because what ‘the good things’ are is really up to the municipal council. Not to the mayor.
Mayors are in charge of the process. Not ‘are we doing the right things’ but ‘are we doing things right’
Even though the mayor is an independent administrative body, the mayor’s role is modest even in the field of public order and safety. The broad lines of policy are laid down in consultation with the police and the Public Prosecution Service. The mayor gives instructions in the event of disasters and disorder, but has not dealt with the deployment of people since before the introduction of the national police. Deploy more investigations to track down the perpetrators of bomb attacks? The mayor doesn’t discuss it.
Of course you cannot directly blame the NOS for the fact that these citizens have the wrong expectations about the mayoralty. But they spread and reinforce these misconceptions. The wrong explanation makes the NOS message less innocent than it seems. The unattainable expectations mentioned are a ready-made recipe for disappointment. And with it loss of confidence in the government.
In addition to the wrong representation, it also gives a wrong impression of our democracy. The NOS article suggests that one person solves your problems, and that you can get your way through one person. This is how it works in presidential systems such as in the US, municipalities with directly elected mayors such as in Germany or district systems such as in the United Kingdom, where after elections one person from one part of society is in charge. Not with us.
In our parliamentary system, power is never vested in individuals, but in institutions. We elect a municipal council or House of Representatives, mainly to continue to conduct the political debate on our behalf. Even after the elections, the pluralism of the people is preserved.
It is precisely giving a voice to as many different voices as possible after the elections that makes our system special. And more democratic than personal democracies. In this country ‘ministers are not policy’ and party leaders of the largest coalition faction cannot have them dismiss unwelcome office holders. A quality that you should cherish. And spread. Instead of misinterpreting with well-intentioned messages.
