The entire management board of the Labour (PvdA) resigned late last night after a four-hour crisis meeting. The meeting was called following the surprise resignation of party chairman Michiel van Hulten earlier in the day.

Sources told ANP Van Hulten’s decision to quit was due to differences of opinion within the board. But they denied it was connected to the party’s poor showing in the November general election, at which the PvdA lost nine seats.
The Volkskrant reported that Van Hulten resigned because some members did not support his plans to revamp the party and to improve education and training for senior officials.
‘It never gelled with a number of board members,’ the paper reported Van Hulten as saying. ‘If the party is doing well, that doesn’t really matter. But when things are going badly, as they are now, it turns against you.’
The party has now reappointed Van Hulten’s predecessor Ruud Koole as interim chairman until a new board is elected. The party’s annual congress has been brought forward from March 2008 to the autumn to elect a new board.
‘One thing is clear,’ party leader and finance minister Wouter Bos told the Volkskrant: ‘We must put this crisis behind us and make a new beginning with a powerful interim board.’