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October 10, 2000 

Far right bloc does well in Belgian election

BRUSSELS (AP) - The far-right Flemish Bloc claimed success in municipal and provincial elections, increasing its lead in Antwerp, Belgium's second biggest city, and gaining in the Dutch-speaking north.

"The Flemish Bloc has won again," party leader Philip Dewinter said Sunday. "Even I had dared not dream this."

In Antwerp, the Flemish Bloc won 33 percent, up five percentage points from the last local elections in 1994, when it emerged as the biggest party in the North Sea port.

The success of the Bloc - which campaigns against immigration and in favor of independence for Dutch-speaking Flanders - will increase concerns of a far-right revival across Europe.

Dewinter said electoral success could force Belgium's mainstream parties to follow the example of Austria's conservatives, which invited the far right Freedom Party into government after last year's legislative elections there.

However, politicians from across the political spectrum insisted they will maintain their boycott of the Flemish Bloc and form local coalitions to keep the party out of local government.

The win gives the Bloc 20 of the 55 seats in Antwerp's municipal council. But Mayor Leona Detiege said they will keep a coalition to keep the nationalists out of power in the Dutch-speaking city, which is home to a large population of immigrants, mostly from North Africa and Turkey.

"We are going to continue to struggle against the Flemish Bloc in the poor neighborhoods," said Detiege, whose Socialist Party came second with 19.5 percent. "The majority coalition is still standing."

The Flemish Bloc also became the top party in the northern cities of Mechelen, with 25.6 percent of the vote, and Ghent, with 20.2 percent. Projections by the VRT television network also showed the Bloc winning more some 13.5 percent of the vote in Flanders.

Politics in Belgium is divided between the country's Dutch- and French-speaking halves, with different parties running on either side of the linguistic dividing line that runs east-west through the country. Only in bilingual Brussels and a few areas along the language frontier do both Dutch- and French-speaking parties compete.

French-speaking voters deserted the far-right with the National Front loosing the gains it made in 1994.

Away from the Flemish Bloc vote, Belgium's 7.3 million voters increased support slightly for the Liberal, Socialist and Green parties who make up Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's coalition government.

In the French-speaking south and bilingual Brussels, Liberals and Socialists held their positions, while support for the Greens increased around 4 percent and the opposition Christian Social Party continued its decline.

For the first time, citizens from other European Union nations living in Belgium had the right to vote, but only 87,000 of the some 500,000 eligible foreigners registered for the elections.