This is the first Belgian municipality where the sanitary cordon is broken and where the Flemish far-right party manages to gain a majority. In Ninove, Vlaams Belang certainly took power but it was an absolute majority.
The PIT list, of the liberal and former mayor Lode Hofmans, has in fact decided to seal an agreement with Vlaams Belang and the new local party Vrij Ranst after the last municipal elections. This agreement will be presented to the press at around 7:00 p.m.
Note that within the local Vrij Ranst list, we find candidates who have membership cards within the Open VLD and the CD&V. We will now have to examine how these two parties will react.
On October 13, PIT came first in the poll with 25 seats, ahead of the N-VA of outgoing mayor Johan De Ryck (10 seats). The Greens of Groen, who governed with the nationalists in recent years, fell to 3 seats, as many as Vlaams Belang and the new liberal party Vrij Ranst.
Bart Goris, who made the PIT list, is expected to wear the mayoral sash for the next six years.
The sanitary cordon is a Belgian specificity. Exclusively political in Flanders, it is both political and media on the French-speaking side. It dates back to the early 1990s. During the legislative elections of November 24, 1991, described as “Black Sunday”, the Vlaams Blok (renamed Vlaams Belang following a judicial conviction for racism) made an unprecedented electoral breakthrough, then totaling 12 seats out of 212 in the House of Representatives. In response, the five Flemish democratic parties have committed to excluding the far-right from any political coalition, regardless of the level of power.
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