Eduard Bomhoff

Eduard Jan Bomhoff (born 30 September 1944) is a Dutch economist and academic. He served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport of the Netherlands for the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) in the Cabinet Balkenende I from 22 July 2002 until 16 October 2002.

Bomhoff is currently an economics professor at the Monash University Malaysia Campus in Kuala Lumpur.

Early life

Eduard Jan Bomhoff was born on 30 September 1944 in Amsterdam in a Old Catholic family as the son of Jacobus Gerardus Bomhoff a Minister and professor of literature and Riet van Rhijn. The family moved in 1957 to Leiden. Bomhoff attended the Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden and went to Leiden University. After earning a Master of Economics there he received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in economics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam in 1979. Bomhoff worked as a lecturer in monetary policy there. He earned the rank of professor in 1981, and served as director of the Rochester-Erasmus Executive Master of Business Administration program from 1986 to 1989. He later served as a professor of finance at the Nyenrode Business Universiteit. In addition to his academic career, Bomhoff founded the NYFER institute in 1995, an economic research institute designed as an alternative to the official Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. Bomhoff was also a columnist for the NRC Handelsblad from 1989 until 2002.

Deputy Prime Minister

Bomhoff served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport from 22 July 2002 to his resignation on October 16 of that year. Bomhoff served as a member of the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) despite having been a member of the Labor Party (PvdA) until that election.

Resignation

During his time in the cabinet, Bomhoff came under attack from the Minister of Economic Affairs, Herman Heinsbroek, a fellow member of the LPF. Heinsbroek stated publicly that Bomhoff was a failure as Deputy Prime Minister and started testing the waters for a new political party. A coalition partner, the VVD party, convinced the other LPF ministers that they could replace both Bomhoff and Heinsbroek. Bomhoff told his colleagues that this would not work, but they forced him and Heinsbroek to resign. As predicted by Bomhoff and several major newspapers, the coalition partners then did not allow the LPF to put forward two new ministers, but decided to immediately dissolve parliament and call for new elections. LPF never returned to the Dutch cabinet.

Bomhoff returned to academia after leaving the government, accepting positions as professor first at the University of Bahrain and later at the University of Nottingham. He is currently serving as a professor of Economics in Monash University's Sunway Campus in Malaysia, in the School of Business. Bomhoff has written a book about his time in government, titled Blinde Ambitie (Blind Ambition). He has been the Malaysian principal researcher for the World Values Survey and has published his recent research in the Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology and in Public Choice.

Bomhoff belongs to the Old Catholic Church but considers his religion a private matter. His religious views are quite orthodox. He is married since 1966 and has two children.