Dutch government falls as deaths mount in COVID-19 pandemic On January 15, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced his government’s resignation ahead of national elections scheduled for March 17. He will head a caretaker government until then. Rutte claimed that his resignation aimed to redress the wrong committed in a 2013-2019 welfare scandal, where the Dutch state falsely accused 26,000 parents of dual-national families of welfare fraud, improperly forcing them to pay back tens of thousands of euros in child benefit. “With this decision, the government wants to do justice to all those parents who have been unprecedentedly wronged,” Rutte said. “The rule of law should protect citizens from the all-powerful government, and that has gone horribly wrong here.”