IS THIS WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO THE DUTCH? A HOT POLITICIAN?

AMSTERDAM — Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende lacks sex appeal and charisma, according to high-educated survey (High-educated? I won't even go there...) respondents aged between 25 and 40. The survey of 5,000 business leaders gave the Christian Democrat CDA minister scores of just 2.4 and 4.1 for sex appeal and charisma respectively. Carried out by the careers magazine Volkskrant Banen and research bureau GITP, the survey also found Balkenende is not highly rated for characteristics such as daring, decisiveness, integrity and leadership.


It was revealed last week that Balkenende scored the lowest average rating of the eight party leaders with a score of just 5.9. Socialist SP leader Jan Marijnissen scored the best with 7.2. On the so-called charisma scale, the prime minister scored exceptionally low, news website nu.nl reported on Monday. Only Geert Wilders performed worse. Balkenende scored just 4.8 for exuding authority, 4.7 for prompting admiration and 4.6 for humour.



Women gave Balkenende a score of just 2.3 for sex appeal. Despite the poor results, Balkenende and his CDA party are still performing reasonably well in pre-election polls. "Fortunately for Balkenende, it appears that Dutch voters place more importance on their own wallet and prefer a boring prime minister than a charismatic leader such as [Labour] PvdA leader Wouter Bos whom they don’t know as prime minister," GITP spokesman Anton van der Horst said.