Almaci, De Wever win party president elections

Meyrem Almaci has been elected as the new president of the Flemish party Groen, with 60% of the vote at a party congress in Brussels. Her opponent, Elke Van den Brandt, obtained 40% of the total 761 votes cast.

Almaci (pictured) succeeds Wouter Van Besien, who announced his resignation in August. After the elections last May, the party was excluded from both the Flemish and federal coalition governments.

Almaci, 38, from Antwerp, sits in the federal parliament. “Now that our party has consolidated itself, we have to dare once again to show our face,” she said after her election. “We are no longer the little brother of progressive Flanders.” The party must put itself forward as the main alternative to the “right-wing cutting policy” of the coalition of N-VA, CD&V and Open VLD in power at both federal and Flemish levels, she said.

Also at the weekend, Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever was re-elected as president of the Flemish nationalists N-VA, with 91% of the vote against 9% for opponent Geert Vertongen. De Wever, who now begins his fourth term as the party’s leader, said his priorities would be “stability and continuity”.

“Geert fought a worthy campaign, in which he rightly brought a number of concerns to the attention of members,” De Wever said. “I intend to take work on a number of those points further.”

Normally a president of N-VA may only serve two terms, but De Wever asked for and obtained an exception to the rule in 2011, when he ran unopposed, and again this time. However, he stressed that he had no intention of remaining as “eternal president”.

photo by Ludovic Bol/Groen