Posted on 10/09/2006 2:05:49 AM PDT by Republicain
A far-right party in Belgium's northern Flanders region has made sweeping gains in local elections, while the country's governing party suffered badly. The anti-immigrant Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party won about 20% of the vote in Dutch-speaking Flanders.
However it was knocked from first to second place in its traditional heartland - the city of Antwerp.
In the past other parties have formed coalitions to keep Vlaams Belang out of power, even where it has come first.
They are expected to try to do the same again.
Protest vote
Vlaams Belang campaigns on a platform of independence for Flanders, the richer Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, and an anti-immigration integrationist stance towards minorities.
But it is perhaps primarily a place for the protest vote, for people to register their dissatisfaction with the long-standing political status quo, says the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Brussels.
The status quo seems to be unpopular at the moment, he adds, with the far right making what it calls "spectacular" gains.
The lead party of the national coalition - the Liberal Democrats - has seen its share of the vote slip away.
"This is a landslide victory," said Vlaams Belang party chairman Frank Vanhecke.
However, there was some consolation for the mainstream parties in Antwerp, the home of Vlaams Belang, where it suffered its only significant setback.
Even though it increased its share of the city's vote to 33.5%, it was overtaken by the Socialists, inspired by their popular mayor Patrick Janssens, who made dramatic gains to 35.3%.
"It shows that it is possible to stop Vlaams Belang with a positive project," Mr Janssens said.
Socialists suffer
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt acknowledged the scale of his party's defeat, with less than a year to go before parliamentary elections.
"The average trend of the Flemish Liberal Democrats is not so good," he said.
"We must acknowledge that the government has had a few bad months and we know that whoever leads faces the most fire."
Meanwhile, in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium, Mr Verhofstadt's coalition partners, the Socialists, lost ground badly.
The party, embroiled in a corruption scandal, was forced to give up seats in the cities of Charleroi, Namur, and Liege.
The Christian Democrats were the biggest winners there.
What a beautiful morning!
I'm going to guess that the reason for VB's 2nd place in Antwerp is the reason why their popularity elsewhere in Belgium is rising - an increase in Muslim immigration.
if you read the wikipedia article about the party, it doesn't really seem to be a party of the far right, though some activists from the far right might be among them.
Yes, you're correct. However, the BBC thinks any party opposed to the Moslem invasion is "far right."
i note also that they have plenty of people who have actually won elections, including MEP's, etc.
seems they are a legitimate political party of the center-right. as you note, what constitutes far right for BBC is anything not Stalinist
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