Alexander Pechtold

Infobox_Politician
name =Alexander Pechtold


width =130
height =140
caption =
birth_date =Birth date and age|1965|12|16|mf=y
birth_place =Delft, Netherlands
residence =
death_date =
death_place =
office = D66 chair of the parliamentary party
salary =
term_start = June 24, 2006
term_end = present
predecessor = Lousewies van der Laan
successor = Incumbent
office2 = Minister for Government Reform and Kingdom Relations
salary2 =
term_start2 = 2005
term_end2 = 2006
predecessor2 = Thom de Graaf
successor2 = Atzo Nicolaï
office3 = Mayor of Wageningen
salary3 =
term_start3 = 2003
term_end3 = 2005
predecessor3 =
successor3 = Geert van Rumund
party = Democrats 66
religion = None [http://www.parlement.com/9291000/biof/02380]
constituency =
majority =
spouse =
children =
website = [http://www.pechtold.nl/ www.pechtold.nl]
footnotes =

Alexander Pechtold (born december 16 1965) is a Dutch politician. He is a member of D66, a Dutch social liberal party.

Pechtold studied art history and archeology at Leiden University, obtaining a degree in 1996. He also obtained a certification as auctioneer and worked for the "Van Stockum's Veilingen" during his studies. He was elected chairman of D66 in 2002. At that time he was alderman of Leiden, where earlier he functioned as councillor. He was appointed mayor of Wageningen in 2003. In 2005 he became Minister for Government Reform and Kingdom Relations in the second cabinet of Jan Peter Balkenende.

Pechtold is the "lijsttrekker" for D66 in the Dutch elections of 2006, after he beat parliamentary leader Lousewies van der Laan and others in the 2006 D66 leadership election. Pechtold, as well as Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, resigned from his minister post after the second Balkenende cabinet came in crisis on June 29, 2006. The next day, Balkenende offered the resignation of the full cabinet to the Dutch Queen. In 2007 the parliamentarian press chose Pechtold with 31% of the votes as the 'Dutch Politician of the Year 2007'.

External links

* [http://www.pechtold.nl Alexander Pechtold]