It is regarded in The Hague as the biggest political gamble since the Second World War. Head of government Dick Schoof and his coalition took office in the Netherlands on Tuesday. The 67-year-old starts with the handicap of having been only an emergency solution. Although Dick Schoof had previously been an influential top civil servant, unlike his predecessors he had never been through an election campaign or conducted political negotiations, according to the newspaper „De Volkskrant“.