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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.
Anja Otte
(August 8, 2024)
The dwindling Senate

This column has mentioned the split of the BHV constituency many times. This split is part of a package of measures known as “state reform”. As Belgium tends to change its institutions every so many years, this is already the sixth state reform. A far less controversial part of it are the alterations made to the Senate.

Anja Otte
(August 1, 2024)
A new haven

With elections coming up, there are always political hopefuls who switch parties, after falling out with their previous companions. These days, no fewer than 30 (local) politicians have traded in Vlaams Belang for N-VA.
Anja Otte
(July 18, 2024)
Confidence

Although several parties are taking part, the local elections in Antwerp look mostly like a duel, between current socialist mayor Patrick Janssens and challenger Bart De Wever (N-VA), Flanders’ most popular politician by far. Until recently, this match seemed rather one-sided, with De Wever dominating the headlines, if not with his political views than with his spectacular weight-loss. Janssens remained largely absent – literally even, as a back problem kept him home for several weeks. Last week, though, Janssens started his campaign.
Anja Otte
(July 11, 2024)
Steeple chase

School’s out, and one of these days the Flemish Parliament will be closing its doors, too. Not one day too soon, if you ask Flemish MP Eric Van Rompuy of CD&V. Van Rompuy, the younger brother of European president Herman, is one of the Flemish Parliament’s most senior members. After he missed out on a ministerial portfolio in 2004, he took his brother’s advice to “be free”. In practice, this means that he speaks out on his blog whenever he feels like it, even when his party would prefer he didn’t.
Anja Otte
(July 4, 2024)
BHV is split

What a difference a year makes. Last summer, many believed that Belgium was on the verge of breaking up over an obscure issue no-one really grasped to its full extent. In 2012, this very issue, the splitting of the bilingual constituency BHV, which the Flemish have been demanding for decades, is being discussed in parliament, almost without anyone noticing.
Anja Otte
(June 27, 2024)
Leading lady

What a week this was for Annemie Turtelboom of Open VLD. The federal minister for justice came under criticism after she announced that Sharia4Belgium’s Fouad Belkacem, believed to have inspired recent riots in Molenbeek, would have to now serve out an earlier sentence in prison. Arbitrary justice, the man’s lawyers and some members of parliament called this, which Turtelboom refuted immediately. But Turtelboom ended the week with good news, as two new candidates for the Open VLD list in the city of Antwerp were revealed. Police chief Eddy Baelemans and school director Karin Heremans are not just local celebrities, both were also close to Patrick Janssens, who is running for another term as socialist mayor.
Anja Otte
(June 20, 2024)
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.)
Anja Otte
(June 12, 2024)
Oops, she did it again

Oops, she did it again. Ingrid Lieten (SP.A), vice-minister-president has again forwarded a mail with comments about her colleagues in the government of Flanders. Last year, she did the same thing (and something similar happened to minister Philippe Muyters, Budget minister in the same government). The exact content of Lieten’s mail remains unknown, but the fact that this incident was leaked to the press says a lot about the relationships within the Flemish government.
Anja Otte
(June 6, 2024)
The emperor and the beard

Ostend is known as the Queen of Bathing Resorts, but now it turns out it also has an emperor. The Emperor of Ostend is how two VRT journalists refer to Johan Vande Lanotte, the socialist federal minister of economy and the North Sea.
Anja Otte
(May 30, 2024)