The far right brings in miss Belgium

The extreme right-wing Vlaams Blok (VB) is aiming for at least a 2% gain the next federal elections in May. At present, the party represents approximately 15% of all voters in the Flemish-speaking Flanders region and in Antwerp, its political stronghold, the right wing extremist accounts for one vote in three, representing up to 35% of all voters.

"To obtain 17% of all Flemish votes is realistic", declared party boss Philip Dewinter to the national press. To achieve this ambitious goal, the more or less continuously isolated VB has initiated a vicious campaign against current Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and has resorted to the novel tactic of shipping in political pin-up Anke Vander Meersch to lend a hand.

Vander Meersch was known as "Miss Belgium" in the early 1990s and tried, in vain, to start a political career in the ranks of the Flemish Liberal
Democrat Party (VLD).

Vander Meersch has changed her political bathing costume, however, and is now placed in third position on the VB¹s "senatorial list" which means that her immediate political future looks bright as the Vlaams Blok is almost certain to obtain 5 or 6 seats.

Despite her manifest lack of political experience, Vander Meersch did nearly everything she could to become a Euro-MP four years ago when still a member of the VLD, promising the Flemish electorate nude photographs of herself in "specialised magazines" if she got elected. Despite this bizarre offer and despite a good personal result, she failed to realise her ambitions and the much awaited photographs never saw the light of day.

It was not long after those elections that she quit the VLD for the Vlaams Blok. "The Vlaams Blok says what people really think" she declared at the time. Vlaams Blok leader Philip Dewinter greeted her remarkable switch of party saying : "Vander Meersch has more charisma than the other candidates".

Dewinter¹s welcome is even more remarkable given the way the VB has always strongly condemned and rejected the practice ­ mainly of the mainstream
parties ­ of adopting media personalities without any significant political background. Also very strange is the fact that Vander Meersch hardly represents the higher "moral standards" the far right party claims to defend.

Frank Vanhecke, the VB¹s Euro-MP and rather colourless party president of the party ­ is heading the senatorial list and, if elected, will give up his Euro-seat. His replacement in Strasbourg will be Philip Claeys, the former president of the VB¹s youth section. Another "celebrity" on the list is Johan Demol, the infamous former police commissioner from Schaarbeek, Brussels, who was forced to resign after having lied in public about his membership of a Francophone nazi group, the Front de la Jeunesse.

Wim Haelsterman for AFF/Verzet-RésistanceS, in Brussels
14 janvier 2003

RESISTANCES: THE ENGLISH PAGES
Concerned with the progress of right-wing extremism and the adoption of neo-fascist ideas by mainstream politics in Belgium and all over the world the anti-fascist magazine RésistanceS saw the light of day in may 1997 after several months of preparatory work.

RésistanceS wishes to make a practical contribution to the fight against fascism, racism, xenofobia, extreme nationalism and the paralysing "pensée unique". RésistanceS is fully independent and is not linked to any political organisation whatsoever.

RésistanceS is put together by a team of volunteers with different ethnical and socio-cultural backgrounds from all over the country (Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders).

Our primary objectives are: to expose the extreme right, to analyse the conditions allowing neo-fascism to develop, to prove the worthlessness of right-wing extremist ‘alternatives’, to denounce the influence of neo-fascism on mainstream politics, to establish an anti-fascist network for individuals and organisations

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