The Minister of Security and Justice for the Netherlands resigned Friday, making him the third member of the Dutch government to resign amid a scandal involving a USD $2.1 million deal made between prosecutors and a drug trafficker. Ard van der Steur [official profile in Dutch, PDF] is a member of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberal Party [party website, in Dutch], which now faces trailing poll numbers ahead of the general election in March, with some media reports [BBC report] blaming the scandal. Rutte made a statement to Dutch reporters [Twitter, video] following van der Steur’s resignation, in which Rutte denied the allegations.

As the Dutch general election approaches, ethical concerns have emerged for both of the leading parties. Rutte issued a letter [text, in Dutch] to the public today on the Liberal Party website, saying the Netherlands is “quite a cool country,” but those who chose to act anti-social should “act normal or leave.” This is concerning language for some, who feel Rutte’s political views are normally to the left of the opposing Party for Freedom [official website], whose leader Geert Wilders was found guilty of hate speech [JURIST report] in a Dutch court last month. The trial started [JURIST report] in October without the presence of Wilders himself. The Dutch prosecutor started an investigation [JURIST report] into the allegations in 2014 after receiving more than 6,400 complaints about the remarks made by Wilders.