With 47.4% of the votes, Guy D’haeseleer and his running mate have an absolute majority of seats on the municipal council of Ninove, a town of 40,000 inhabitants west of Brussels.
The town of Ninove, west of Brussels, will be the first municipality in Belgium managed by the Flemish far right, after the victory on Sunday of a deputy from Vlaams Belang (VB) in the municipal election. “I think we made history”reacted the elected official, Guy D’haeseleer, to his activists. The sanitary cordon “is definitely thrown in the trash”he added. A reference to the principle applied in Belgium – a country governed by coalitions – that the extreme right is systematically excluded from majorities.
The list «Forza Ninove»the local version of the VB, won the election in this town of 40,000 inhabitants with 47.4% of the votes, against 30.8% for the outgoing mayor, a liberal. This result ensures Guy D’haeseleer and his running mates an absolute majority of seats on the municipal council.
A first for the far right
With 47.4% of the votes, «Forza Ninove» improves its score by more than seven points compared to the 2018 election, at the end of which Guy D’haeseleer, in the lead, came up against the “sanitary cordon”. A broad coalition around the Flemish liberals was able to form to keep him in opposition. Never before has the Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang (formerly Vlaams Blok), which is now the main rival of the conservative N-VA in Flanders, managed a community.
In the Flemish Regional Parliament, the VB, the leading opposition group, has 31 elected representatives, as many as the N-VA, leader of the majority coalition. The VB also won 20 parliamentary seats (out of 150) in the Federal Parliament during the legislative elections on June 9.
