Wim Kok

Kok's 'purple' coalitions of 1994 to 2002 joined his Labour Party with the free-market VVD and the liberal D66 and, for the first time in decades, left the Christian Democrats out of Dutch government. The unlikely partners delivered strong job growth through wage moderation and budget repair, and passed same-sex marriage and regulated euthanasia. The government resigned in 2002 over the official report on Srebrenica, and voters soon punished the governing parties in the political upheaval around Pim Fortuyn.