Former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, a trade unionist-turned-politician who inspired a new breed of pragmatic Social Democratic leaders who swept to power in Europe in the 1990s, has died at 80.
Current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Kok, who died Saturday, "was a man to look up to if only for his long service and great importance for our country." Labor Party leader Lodewijk Asscher called Kok a "model of integrity."
Ahead of Kok's second election victory in 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised him as "one of the greatest people in politics today."
Dutch King Willem-Alexander, his wife Queen Maxima and former queen Beatrix issued a statement Saturday praising Kok for his "integrity and talent for making complex problems manageable."
"Kok laughed out loud about it." Kok, the son of a Dutch carpenter, will be remembered as one of the founding fathers of the "Polder Model."
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