Mark Rutte, whose attachment to his old Nokia has long stuck in his image as a sober man, explained, Wednesday, having archived all important messages and deleted the others in order to free up space.
Le Monde with AFP
The Hillary Clinton email affair had parasitized the entire campaign of the Democratic candidate for the 2016 American presidential election. Will the SMS affected case cost his post to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands , Mark Rutte? More specifically, the question is whether or not, the law by erasing texts.
The “Nokiagate”- as the Dutch media call it , in reference to the retro phone model of the Nokia brand used by Mr. Rutte – broke out following the publication of An article from the daily Volkskrant , Wednesday May 18. The Dutch newspaper explains that it has discovered this information by trying to access government communications in 2020, in full pandemic of COVVI-19.
The Prime Minister, whose attachment to his old Nokia has long stuck in his image as a sober man, defended himself on Wednesday, explaining that he had archived all important messages and deleted the others in order to release the ‘space.
“I complied with the directives,” said journalists Mr. Rutte, nicknamed the “Prime Minister in Teflon” (an extremely resistant material) by the media for his ability to survive scandals. Head of government since 2010 – a record -, the 55 -year -old liberal, was also baptized “Mister silicone” by a daily life: he has the flexibility of the rubber and resists temperature differences. It is true that “Makke” Rutte (“the docile”, another nickname) has managed to govern successively with the right, the center and the left over the years. He even managed to lead the country for two years with the tacit support of his far -right rival, Geert Wilders.
To defend himself, the Prime Minister stressed that he had not violated the Archiving Act, insisting that he had “never deliberately” hidden from important cases by deleting messages. “It is possible that I have made an error in judgment, but errors will always be made,” he added.
“not a big fan of smartphones”
According to Dutch Acts on Archives, certain government correspondences must be preserved in order to be able to explain to the public – including deputies and journalists – why some choices have been made. The problem, explains from Volkskrant, is that Mr. Rutte was the only one to determine which SMS was important enough to be transmitted to a government official in order to be archived.