Former ChristenUnie minister Carola Schouten will be sworn in as the new mayor of Rotterdam later on Thursday, succeeding Ahmed Aboutaleb who has stood down midway through his third term.

Schouten will be the first female mayor for the port city, as Aboutaleb was the first Muslim.

Since her nomination, she has been out of the spotlight and little is known about her ambitions for the city. But local residents told broadcaster NOS that public safety, housing and doing more for the city’s youngsters should be among her priorities.

“Schouten should first get to grips with public safety,” Amrish (41) told NOS. “People don’t always feel safe walking around at night, with all those explosions. It has happened twice close to my own home.”

He called on the new mayor to come along and see for herself what it is like. “Making connections is always a good thing,” he said.

Carmen Fernandes (51) told the broadcaster that the focus should be on finding housing for youngsters who are struggling to get a home of their own. “My own daughter of 29 still lives at home… she’s been on a waiting list for 10 years,” she said. “A lot of buildings are being left empty which could easily become temporary housing for youngsters.”

Adilson (33) from Spangen hopes the mayor will invest more in doing things for youngsters, so that they no longer have to hang around on the streets while Luurt Postma (68) called for action to improve the condition of the city’s pavements.

“I’ve told the beat police officer and I’ve been to the council offices,” Postma said. “But nothing is being done.”

New mayor

Schouten (47) was farm minister and deputy prime minister in the previous government and has lived in Rotterdam for almost 30 years.

She is a single parent with one child and is a graduate of Rotterdam’s Erasmus University where she studied business administration.

During her six year tenure she faces a number of major challenges, not least of which is tackling the city’s reputation as a centre of the international drugs industry, with all the associated crime that attracts.

“The mayor is responsible for public order and safety, and will have to get working quickly to reverse the trend,” the AD said. “It will be interesting to see if she takes the same line in trying to reduce international drugs smuggling, with visits to South America, as Aboutaleb.”

The shortage of housing, increasing polarisation between rich and poor and finding a way out of the impasse surrounding the Kuip football stadium are other issues which will be high on her agenda, the paper said.