Social affairs minister Eddy van Hijum is expected to be confirmed as the new leader of centre-right party NSC later this week after his only rival, Diederik Boomsma, withdrew his candidacy.

Van Hijum will be confirmed on Thursday by the party’s executive committee unless an alternative candidate comes forward.

He will succeed Nicolien van Vroonhoven, who decided last week not to lead NSC into the general election in October.

Van Hijum admitted that the leadership of Nieuw Sociaal Contract had considered disbanding the party less than two years after it was founded by former CDA MP Pieter Omtzigt.

“We have been through a hugely turbulent year and a half which has brought us a lot of hassle and people have lost trust” he told NPO Radio 1. “So the question was: do we keep going together or has this experiment failed?”

The party won 20 seats under Omtzigt in the November 2023 election, but its support has collapsed since NSC joined the four-party right-wing coalition and it is currently predicted to retain only one MP.

Party insiders had feared a potentially damaging contest between Van Hijum and Boomsma, NSC’s spokesman on asylum, defence and Europe, who announced he was standing last week.

Van Hijum was endorsed by the executive committee and was understood to be the preferred choice of party founder Pieter Omtzigt, while Van Vroonhoven said in an interview at the weekend that Boomsma was too far to the right to represent “the average NSC ideology”.

Boomsma said on Tuesday evening he was no longer standing out of respect for the board’s decision. “I have taken that into consideration and I am withdrawing,” he said.

Van Hijum acknowledged that the upcoming election campaign would be challenging for the party. “It’s a big task, an ‘uphill battle’, as they say, but I’m very motivated to do it,” he said.