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Fifth column

10 things to watch out for on election night

1. Local elections are, above all, local. The general trends journalists report may mean nothing with respect to the town you live in, where popular candidates can make all the difference.

2. Antwerp. N-VA’s Bart De Wever seems set for a landslide win, but will it really happen? Sitting socialist mayor Patrick Janssens lags behind but may benefit from strategic voting. In short: All voters who do not want the nationalist De Wever as mayor may rally around Janssens.

3. The Christian-democrat CD&V calls itself the people’s party because of its strong grass roots support. Can it hold on to this status? Or will N-VA, whose local candidates lack the stature of De Wever, become the new people’s party?

Anja Otte
(October 9, 2012)

The smartest Turk

Selahatin Koçak is no longer a socialist. Koçak is known throughout Flanders as “the smartest Turk”, since he appeared on the popular TV quiz show De slimste mens ter wereld, or The Smartest Person in the World. Like Bart De Wever, who owes much of his popularity to the same programme, Koçak, then relatively unknown, delighted TV audiences with his wit and sense of humour. He became a household name.

Destined to be a miner, like his immigrant father, Koçak takes pride in being a first. He had hoped to be the first mine engineer of Turkish descent. As it turned out, he was “in the pit” at 16. With little formal education, he went on to become not only the first alderman but also the first teacher at a police school of Turkish descent in Flanders. In interviews, he’s often spoken of his dream to become the first Turkish mayor.

Anja Otte
(August 8, 2012)

Public Enemy No. 1

The events in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek last week following the arrest of a woman wearing a niqab are disturbing. Not only was there rioting in the streets, a French extremist travelled all the way to Brussels in order to kill some police officers. (He stabbed two in the metro, before he was arrested.)

In the wake of these events, all fingers point at one man, deemed responsible for the series of events. Fouad Belkacem, the spokesperson for the radical organisation Sharia4Belgium, is believed to have incited hatred against non-Muslims over the internet, something he was already convicted of last year. Belkacem has now become public enemy number one in the press and political circles, though most Muslims consider him to be nothing but a troublemaker.

Anja Otte
(June 12, 2012)

Fifth Column

Climbing out

The Flemish socialists are very different from their comrades across the language border. They are the more modern social-democrats, but the main difference is the Flemish SP.A’s electoral strength. While Wallonia is often described as a PS-state, Flanders is anything but socialist country. At the 2010 federal elections, only 14% of the voters backed SP.A; the left side vote, including the greens, totaled merely 20%.

Getting more voters is the number one job for SP.A’s new president. In September Bruno Tobback, the only candidate for the job, will succeed Caroline Gennez as the head of the socialist party.

Anja Otte
(August 2, 2011)

The King's Speech

Wouter Beke, party president of CD&V, is off to the Languedoc; his Open VLD colleague Alexander De  Croo heads for the Basque area; and formateur Elio Di Rupo is going to spend some days in Italy.

Every year, newspapers list out the holiday destinations of Belgium’s main political players. Usually, they do this because there is little else  to report. But this year was different. The timing of the holidays was particularly odd, just one day after a dramatic speech by the King,  which seemed to indicate that this time, for real, the country was falling apart.

Anja Otte
(July 26, 2011)

Collective foolishness

Before he became European Commissioner, Karel De Gucht was one of the leading politicians in Flanders. He had a reputation for being very opinionated – “Karel is always right”, was often said – but not always equally convincing. It has never stopped him from speaking up.

This weekend, De Gucht lashed out again in an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws. He is perplexed by the political crisis that has left Belgium without a federal government for 11 months: “The politicians in power now can govern Europe like no one else. But themselves? Belgium? Alas. This isn’t normal, is it?”

Anja Otte
(May 25, 2011)

To see what is right

Royal mediator Wouter Beke (CD&V) has handed in his final report. “All the building blocks are there for an agreement,” he said. Flemish daily De Morgen summed up his efforts slightly differently: 8 centimetres of paperwork, 9 proposals to split BHV, 144 pages of text, 600 pages of technical notes, 71 days as mediator, 6 visits to the king, 3 large chapters, 2 privileged negotiating partners, 1.1 pages a day, 0 progress.

Again, Belgium has not moved any closer to forming a federal government.

Anja Otte
(May 18, 2011)

Tuybens bashing

Money is to socialists what sex is to Christian-democrats: You’re best not seen having too much of it. Bruno Tuybens found this out the hard way last week.

Tuybens entered the political scene in 2005, when he became secretary for government enterprises in the federal government. Before that, he worked as a broker, specialising in ethical investments, at KBC bank. He was also the president of Amnesty International Flanders.

Anja Otte
(May 11, 2011)

A way out for Gennez

The presidency of the Christian- democrat CD&V has often been described as the hardest job in Belgian politics. Presiding over a party that unites farmers, workers and employers means constantly    accommodating different factions, while being part of a coalition makes for a permanent disgruntlement among party members.

Recently this description has fit the presidency of the socialist SP.A even more. Factions, discontent and disappointment, it's all there. When De Morgen last week reported that SP.A president Caroline Gennez would not stand for a second term, the news, though unconfirmed, surprised few. Since 2007, Gennez has blundered a couple of times. She tried to change the party's name without much internal consultation. She disappointed allies by denying them ministerial portfolios.

Anja Otte
(May 4, 2011)

Golden skirts

Almost a year after the elections and with no less than nine parties around the table, it’s still unsure what the new coalition will look like. Will the next government be centre-right or centre-left? Who knows. One thing is sure, N-VA, the winner of the federal elections in Flanders, is increasingly behaving as a right-wing party.

When it was founded in 2001, N-VA did not position itself as either right or left; it was nationalist foremost. That changed with the self-declared conservative Bart De Wever as president. He has even joked that "his real boss is Voka", an employers' organisation.

Anja Otte
(April 13, 2011)