VVD MP Thom van Campen has been elected as chair of the new Dutch parliament after beating the incumbent, Martin Bosma, in a ballot of MPs.

The 35-year-old won in a run-off against Bosma, of the far-right PVV party, to become the youngest chair ever at the age of 35.

Tom van der Lee of GroenLinks-PvdA, who also stood against Bosma two years ago, was eliminated after the first two rounds failed to produce a clear winner.

Van Campen said he felt the responsibility of the job “weigh heavily on his shoulders” before immediately closing the session, having promised to keep parliamentary business “short and to the point”.

“I’ve said enough. Let’s get to work. People in the country are counting on us,” he said before banging his gavel for the first time.

Van Campen pledged during his speech to MPs to “ensure that all views in the House” were included and be strictly non-partisan.

Bosma controversial

He also urged his colleagues not to be influenced by his age and look instead to his experience of handling complex dossiers in the four and a half years since he was first elected.

Bosma was highly regarded in his two years as chairman and his previous two terms as deputy chair for keeping a tight rein on debates and interruptions and mostly sticking to his informal curfew of 11pm.

But he was also a controversial figure for some parties because of his closeness to PVV leader Geert Wilders and earlier support for Great Replacement conspiracy theories.

Bosma had his invitation to the annual commemoration of the abolition of slavery withdrawn because he had called the leader of a slave uprising a “racist murderer”. Wilders wants the Netherlands to retract its formal apologies for its slave trading past.

Bosma addressed the point in his pitch to retain his job, describing slavery as a “dark page in our history”. He said a commemoration he attended on the former colony of Curaçao had “made a deep impression”.

Van der Lee said he wanted to make more time to ensure legislation was thoroughly scrutinised in debates and drew on his experience as a deputy chair to both Bosma and his predecessor, Vera Bergkamp. “The most important thing is for me to be politically neutral in my role,” he said.

Bosma won 66 votes in the first round, nine short of victory, with Van der Lee second on 43 and Van Campen taking 39.

In the second round Bosma gained one vote while Van Campen took 49, while Van der Lee was eliminated on 32.