Annabel Nanninga (born 6 November 1977 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

) is a Dutch politician and journalist who was the co-founder of the

JA21 JA21 (, backronym for Juiste Antwoord 2021, or 'Right Answer 2021') is a political party in the Netherlands, currently active in the Senate as the Nanninga Group (). It was founded in December 2020 by Joost Eerdmans and Annabel Nanninga after ...

party. She currently leads the party in the Senate and is a representative of the

Provincial Council of North Holland The Provincial Council of North Holland ( nl, Provinciale Staten van Noord-Holland, ), also known as the States of North Holland, is the provincial council of North Holland, Netherlands. It forms the legislative body of the province. Its 55 seats ...

. She has been a member of

Amsterdam city council The Government of Amsterdam consists of several territorial and functional forms of local and regional government. The principal form of government is the municipality of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The municipality's territory covers the city of Amster ...

since 2018.

Early life and career

Nanninga was born in Amsterdam where she attended

Barlaeus Gymnasium The Barlaeus Gymnasium is a secondary school in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It is one of the five categorial gymnasia in Amsterdam, the other four being Vossius Gymnasium, Ignatius Gymnasium, Het 4e gymnasium and Cygnus Gymnasium. It offers a ...

(high school). She stated in an interview with ''

RTL Nederland RTL Nederland is a Dutch media network, a subsidiary of the RTL Group. The media company is located in Hilversum, although the licences of its TV stations are issued in Luxembourg. History The history of the network dates back to 1989 when dut ...

'' that she often played truant, describing her school as "elitist," and self-educated herself by going to the library while skipping classes. Nanninga subsequently dropped out of school as a teenager and held various jobs including in an ice cream parlor, as a caterer and in a fashion store. In 2012, she took an interest in blogging and journalism and began submitting op-eds to ''

GeenStijl GeenStijl is a Dutch blog founded on 10 April 2003. The logo is a pink coloured crown within a circle. In the Dutch language, the term "geen stijl" (literal translation: no style) is used to describe an act by a person or organisation that lack ...

,'' ''

PowNed PowNed is a Dutch broadcaster, which transmits radio and television programmes on the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system. Each weekday evening it airs a satirical news show called '' PowNews'' on Nederland 3, in which politicians and othe ...

,'' and ''

Veronica Magazine Veronica is a brand name of successive Dutch commercial radio and television stations. It began its life as an offshore radio station, Radio Veronica, on 17 May 1960. The name comes from its first name VRON (Vrije Radio Omroep Nederland; ). "Fre ...

'' among others. In 2014, she co-founded the Dutch online news platform '' Jalta.nl'' with Joshua Livestro and was the site's managing editor until 2015. The website hired notable figures such as

Frits Bolkestein Frederik "Frits" Bolkestein (; born 4 April 1933) is a retired Dutch politician and businessman who served as Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from 1990 to 1998 and European Commissioner for Internal Market from 199 ...

Thierry Baudet Thierry Henri Philippe Baudet (; born 28 January 1983) is a Dutch far-right politician, author and self-declared conspiracy theorist. He is the founder and leader of Forum for Democracy (FvD), and has been a member of the House of Representative ...

and Hafid Bouazza to write columns. She was also a columnist for ''DeJaap'' magazine.

Political career

In the 2018 Dutch municipal elections, she was the party leader for

Forum for Democracy Forum for Democracy ( nl, Forum voor Democratie, FvD) is a right-wing populist Eurosceptic political party in the Netherlands that was founded as a think tank by Thierry Baudet and Henk Otten in 2016. The party first participated in elections ...

(FVD) in Amsterdam. FvD received three seats in the municipal council. Nanninga was sworn in as a councilor on March 29, 2018. In March 2019 she also became a member of the

. Incidentally, she was also elected in the Provincial Council of Utrecht in the same elections. In October 2020 Nanninga went on maternity leave and was temporarily replaced by Hugo Berkhout and later by Robert Baljeu in the Senate. In November 2020, she left the FvD following a series of controversies within the party and founded the

with former FvD candidate

Joost Eerdmans Bernard Johannes "Joost" Eerdmans (born 9 January 1971) is a Dutch politician, broadcaster and former civil servant who has served as Leader of JA21 since 18 December 2020, a party he co-founded with Annabel Nanninga. Elected to the House of R ...

. On February 15, 2021, she returned to the Senate from her leave and joined the Van Pareren faction, which was renamed the Nanninga faction and has 7 seats. The faction subsequently became part of JA21.

Controversies

Nanninga posted a series of tweets on her

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

page in 2006 which were deemed antisemitic. These tweets were retroactively deleted during 2020–21, however multiple internet archives contain screenshots of the tweets in which she made antisemitic remarks and jokes about the Holocaust. In subsequent interviews, Nanninga remarked that the tweets were intended to be satirical in nature. Nanniga also encountered some controversy over articles she had published in which she criticised the influx of migrants during the

European refugee crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis, also known internationally as the Syrian refugee crisis, was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe in 2015, when 1.3 million people came to the continent to request ...

and made jokes regarding migrants and asylum seekers arriving by boat. Nanninga later claimed she was attempting to emulate the writing style of

Gerard Reve Gerard Kornelis van het Reve (14 December 1923 – 8 April 2006) was a Dutch writer. He started writing as Simon Gerard van het Reve and adopted the shorter Gerard Reve in 1973. Together with Willem Frederik Hermans and Harry Mulisch, he i ...

Electoral history

Personal life

Nanninga has three children: her first daughter was born when she was 19 years old; her second daughter followed three years later. In 2020 she had a son.Van ijsjes verkopen naar politiek: de carrière van FvD-kopstuk Annabel Nanninga
RTL Z, 29 maart 2019
Gearchiveerd
op 15 mei 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nanninga, Annabel Living people 1977 births Members of the Senate (Netherlands) JA21 politicians 21st-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch women politicians Dutch journalists