In 1986 Bijleveld became a member of the
Enschede municipal council for the Christian Democratic Appeal. She served as a
Member of the House of Representatives from 16 November 1989 until 16 January 2001. She was
Mayor of
Hof van Twente from 1 January 2001 until 22 February 2007, when she resigned to become the
State secretary for the
Interior and Kingdom Relations in the
Fourth Balkenende cabinet until 14 October 2010. On 17 June 2010 she again became a member of the House of Representatives. She was an MP till 1 January 2011 when she became
King's Commissioner of
Overijssel.
Minister of Defence, 2017–2021 Bijleveld left that position in 2017 as she was appointed to be
Minister of Defence. Early in her tenure, Bijleveld oversaw Dutch efforts to disrupt a 2018 attempt by Russian intelligence agents to hack the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). In October 2019, journalists from
NRC and
NOS revealed that an air raid on the
Iraqi city
Hawija in early June 2015 had been carried out by Dutch
F16s. This bombing of a weapons depot resulted in 70 civilian deaths. Bijleveld's predecessor,
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, was aware of this, but had incorrectly informed the House of Representatives about this. Bijleveld was criticized, because she too could have informed the House of Representatives about this earlier. For this reason
GroenLinks-
parliamentarian
Isabelle Diks filed a motion of no confidence on 5 November 2019, which was supported by 71 parliamentarians. In this parliamentary debate Rutte and Bijleveld stated that the number of seventy civilian deaths was uncertain and that this was also not known to the
United States Central Command. After inquiries from NRC and NOS, United States Central Command however confirmed that they have known this number of casualties for a while now. The fact that journalists could get this information led to a fourth debate about this bombing. In this debate, Bijleveld survived another vote of no confidence, which was supported by only 69 parliamentarians. Bijleveld resigned on 17 September 2021 after the
House of Representatives filed a motion of disapproval on how she and
Sigrid Kaag handled the evacuation of
Afghanistan, even though the day before she said she wouldn't resign. == Electoral history ==