Marcus Gerhardus Theodorus (Marco) Pastors (born 10 September 1965) is a Dutch civil servant and former politician. Since 1 February 2012 he has been director of the Nationaal Programma Kwaliteitssprong Zuid, a project of the city of Rotterdam to improve living conditions in the south of Rotterdam. Pastors was political leader of the local party Livable Rotterdam (Leefbaar Rotterdam), a member of the city council and also an

alderman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members t ...

of the municipality of Rotterdam. Besides he was political leader of

One NL Eén NL (One NL) is a Dutch political party founded in September 2006. It took part in the 2006 Dutch election under the leadership of Marco Pastors and Joost Eerdmans, but a dismal election result leaves the political future of the party quite u ...

(Een NL), a Dutch political party at the national level.

Early life

In his political pamphlet ''At your service'' which was published in 2006 he described his catholic and rural upbringing as unremarkable, with his parents' problematic marriage as a recurring theme. He obtained a degree in economics from Erasmus University in 1989 and from 1990 to 1993 he worked for ''OV-studentenkaart BV'' (a company managing public transportation for students) then headed by

Pim Fortuyn Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn (; 19 February 1948 – 6 May 2002), was a Dutch politician, author, civil servant, businessman, sociologist and academic who founded the party Pim Fortuyn List (Lijst Pim Fortuyn or LPF) ...

, his future political ally. He then went on to work for Getronics and later on for Zenc (an IT provider for the public sector) of which he was a co-founder.

Local politics

Pastors started his political career in January 2002 when his formed boss Fortuyn was elected leader of Livable Rotterdam (Leefbaar Rotterdam). He was given the responsibility for infrastructure and housing as an

and he focused on improving living conditions in some of the Rotterdam slum areas. He introduced measures which allowed tenants to buy their house and also introduced legislation banning prospective residents without a proper income or job prospects given the high unemployment and poverty in some residential area's. Some of these initiatives (called the ''Rotterdam Wet'') were supported by national politicians. Pastors was critical of the proliferation of

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

s, the erection of minarets and was opposed to practises associated with new immigrants with a Muslim background such as

honor killing An honor killing (American English), honour killing (Commonwealth English), or shame killing is the murder of an individual, either an outsider or a member of a family, by someone seeking to protect what they see as the dignity and honor of ...

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marriage, marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is ...

forced marriage Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later force ...

and suppression of women. On a regular basis he was challenged for making denigrating remarks at the expense of the Muslim minority and left-wing politicians which he perceived as politically correct. A denigrating remark regarding immigration and the political party Groen Links in the beginning of 2005 resulted in Pastors colliding with the city council and he was forced to further refrain from public comments on immigration and integration. In October 2005 he again collided with the city council when he commented in a Catholic newspaper that Muslims abused their religion when justifying some of their actions. As a result, the city council forced him out as an Alderman on 8 November 2005. In the 2006 municipal elections in Rotterdam Leefbaar Rotterdam polled about a third of the vote, but lost 3 of their 17 seats and the Pastors-led party therefore moved to the opposition benches.

National politics

In 2006 Pastors started a new political party called Eén NL together with

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 ...

formerly a member of the

Lijst Pim Fortuyn The Pim Fortuyn List ( nl, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, LPF) was a political party in the Netherlands named after its eponymous founder Pim Fortuyn, a former university professor and political columnist. The party was considered populist, right-wing popul ...

that participated in the

2006 Dutch general election General elections were held in the Netherlands on 22 November 2006 following the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet. The elections proved relatively successful for the governing Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) which remained the largest par ...

. Its main campaign issues were reforms in social security, education and integration of minorities. The party stood for pro law and order, anti bureaucracy. According to the new party new immigrants should understand that Western culture is the dominant culture. Many of his voters believed Pastors to be ''"the real heir"'' to Pim Fortuyn. In a sweeping statement that aroused debate, Pastors said that radical Islam was being appeased in the same way as Nazism was in 1930s Germany. ''"There are big similarities. There were indications that developments in Germany were going the wrong way; that Germany was preparing for war; that Germany was making the Jews the scapegoat"''. Pastors criticized customs such as arranged marriages, lack of tolerance of homosexuality and lack of freedom to renounce the Islamic faith. ''"No one took measures against what Germany was doing. What we are doing is not taking actions against Muslims in quarters where they are living."''."Fortuyn's heirs eclipsed as big parties move right"
/ref>

References

*
Parlement.com biography

External links

Politics starts at city level
an interview with ErasmusPC. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pastors, Marco 1965 births Living people Aldermen of Rotterdam Dutch civil servants Dutch political party founders Dutch political commentators Erasmus University Rotterdam alumni Leaders of political parties in the Netherlands Municipal councillors of Rotterdam Livable Rotterdam politicians One NL politicians People from West Maas en Waal