Diederik Samsom

Diederik Maarten Samsom (born 10 July 1971) is a Dutch environmentalist and retired politician who was the Labour Party (Partij van de Arbeid PvdA) from 2012 to 2016.

He was the first leader in the 70-year history of the PvdA to have been voted out of his position by party members.

He later served as head of cabinet for First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans and his successor Wopke Hoekstra.

Diederik Maarten Samsom was born on 10 July 1971 in Groningen in the Netherlands.

He was raised in Leeuwarden.

His father worked as an internist and his mother as a physiotherapist.

Between 1983 and 1989, he attended the Stedelijk Gymnasium (Municipal Gymnasium) in Leeuwarden.

There he became interested in physics, and later he went on to study applied physics at Delft University of Technology.

Samsom specialised in nuclear physics and became a level three radiation protection expert.

Samsom joined environmental organisation Greenpeace Netherlands in September 1995 as a volunteer.

He graduated in May 1997, obtaining a Dutch engineer's degree (ingenieur).

He was also on the board of the national students' union LSVb and edited a yearly edition of the Poenboek, a students' guide relating to monetary issues.

Samsom had been involved in environmental issues long before entering politics.

He led several campaigns and projects until he resigned in December 2001, after the PvdA offered him a career in politics.

He left the party but rejoined in February 2001.

He also worked as the CEO of Echte Energie (Real Energy), a small green energy trading company, from August 2002 until January 2003.

Samsom became a member of the social democratic Labour party while a student in Delft.

He stood as a candidate in the 2002 Dutch general election, but was not elected due to the PvdA receiving insufficient votes in the election.

Elected to the House of Representatives between 30 January 2003 and 14 December 2016, he was elected PvdA parliamentary leader as well as party leader on 16 March 2012.

The party regained most of its seats in the 2003 election and this time Samsom had a higher position (nine) on the list of candidates.

He was subsequently sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives on 30 January 2003.

Together with fellow PvdA parliamentarians Staf Depla and Jeroen Dijsselbloem he traveled around the country campaigning.

They operated under the name The Red Engineers (De rode ingenieurs), referring to both their scientific backgrounds and their red overalls.

NRC newspaper editor Coen van Zwol called their campaign fresh, clear and sharp (Dutch: fris, helder en scherp).

Before being admitted as the leader of the Labour party, Samsom was the party's spokesperson on environmental issues: sustainability, climate and energy, traffic congestion and railway issues and projects.

He was nineteenth on the list of candidates in the 2006 Dutch general elections receiving a relative high number of 6248 preferential votes.

Jacques Tichelaar became the leader of the parliamentary party shortly after the 2006 general election in February 2007 but fell ill in January 2008.

He underwent a septuple bypass surgery and this took him three months to recuperate.

On 16 April, he announced he had decided to resign from office for health reasons.

According to pollster Maurice de Hond, a majority of the 2006 Labour voters preferred Samsom as party leader.

Out of a total of 1,500 Labour voters, 26% favoured Hamer while 42% liked Samsom better.

In April 2008, Samsom was a candidate to succeed Jacques Tichelaar as parliament party leader, but eventually he lost the vote to Mariëtte Hamer.

Tichelaar planned to return as a parliamentarian on 1 July 2008.

As vice parliamentary leader Hamer had led the party in Tichelaar's absence.

The next day she decided to run for office.

Three days later, Samsom officially announced that he would also compete in the race.

Other names were mentioned, but only Samsom and Hamer decided to vie for the position.

All 33 PvdA parliamentarians gathered two days later to discuss the position and cast their votes, resulting in a victory for Hamer.

He lost the Labour Party leadership election to Lodewijk Asscher in December 2016.

Before his election to the House of Representatives he was CEO of a green energy company and a campaigner for Greenpeace Netherlands.