Belgian Regional Elections, 2009
Regional elections were held in Belgium on 7 June 2009 to choose representatives in the regional parliaments of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking Community of Belgium. These elections were held on the same day as the European elections.http://www.eurotopics.net/en/presseschau/aeltere/NEWSLETTER-2009-02-18-Belgian-state-reform-fails The Parliament of the French Community is composed of all elected members of the Walloon Parliament (except German-speakers) and the first 19 French-speaking members of the Brussels Parliament. Flemish Parliament All 124 members of the Flemish Parliament were elected. The five Flemish provinces (West Flanders, East Flanders, Antwerp, Flemish Brabant and Limburg) each are a constituency, plus the Brussels-Capital Region where those voting for a Dutch-language party could also vote in the Flemish election. SourceElections 2009 - Flemish Parliament , style="text-align:center;" colspan="11" , ← 2004 • 2009 • 2014 → , - style= ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven. Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Filip Dewinter
Philip Michel Frans "Filip" Dewinter (born 11 September 1962) is a Belgian politician. He is one of the leading members of Vlaams Belang, a right-wing Flemish nationalist and secessionist political party. Together with Hugo Coveliers of the VLOTT party, Dewinter formed a list cartel for the city elections of Antwerp on 8 October 2006. Family background His father was studying medicine at the Leuven University during the Second World War, when he had to hide, as the threat of being deported by the Germans increased. He was nevertheless arrested and already after a few months of imprisonment in Bruges, had been deported to Germany to work in a munitions factory. He returned, after the war, sick and emaciated and unable to take up his studies again. Dewinter's grandfather on his mother's side was a resistance fighter who had been very active in the resistance group, the ''Witte Brigade'' (White Brigade), in Blankenberge. Political career Dewinter was already politically active d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Green Politics
Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but not always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy. Wall 2010. p. 12-13. It began taking shape in the western world in the 1970s; since then Green parties have developed and established themselves in many countries around the globe and have achieved some electoral success. The political term green was used initially in relation to ''die Grünen'' (German for "the Greens"), a green party formed in the late 1970s. The term political ecology is sometimes used in academic circles, but it has come to represent an interdisciplinary field of study as the academic discipline offers wide-ranging studies integrating ecological social sciences with political economy in topics such as degradation and marginalization, environmental conflict, conservation and control and environmental identities and social movements. Supporte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Groen (political Party)
Groen (English: Green; nl, Groen, ), founded as Agalev (see Name below), is a green Flemish political party in Belgium. Its French-speaking equivalent is Ecolo; the two parties maintain close relations with each other. Party history Before 1979 Many of the founders of political party Agalev came from or were inspired by the social movement Agalev. This movement was founded by the Jesuit Luc Versteylen, who had founded the environmental movement Agalev in the 1970s. Core values of this social movement were quiet, solidarity and soberness. This movement combined progressive Catholicism with environmentalism. It sought to spread environmental consciousness first on a small scale, but since 1973 it took action to protect the environment and promote environmental consciousness. In the 1974 and 1977 elections Agalev supported several candidates from traditional parties, these however soon forgot the promises they made. In 1977 the movement entered the elections in several municip ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean-Marie Dedecker
Jean-Marie Louis Dedecker (born 13 June 1952) is a Belgian politician. In 1999 and 2003, Dedecker was directly elected to the Belgian Senate for the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD). In 2004 Dedecker ran for a seat in the Flemish Parliament, after taking his seat in the Flemish Parliament, Dedecker was elected by his colleagues as a community senator as well. He was expelled from the VLD, and eventually sided with the N-VA party for a brief time in November–December 2006. In January 2007, Dedecker presented his own political party— Lijst Dedecker—that participated in the 2007 general election. Against all expectations, Lijst Dedecker got 5 elected in Parliament, and 1 in Senate. Dedecker became well-known first for his long career as a judo coach, with his judokas winning for Belgium unprecedented number of medals (among them four times Olympian gold), and then for his politics. In 2004, as a pure outsider, he won 38% of the votes for the VLD party leadership again ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Libertarianism
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's encroachment on and violations of individual liberties; emphasizing the rule of law, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, cooperation, civil and political rights, bodily autonomy, free association, free trade, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, individualism and voluntary association. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of Libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions. Different categori ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Dedecker
Libertarian, Direct, Democratic ( nl, Libertair, Direct, Democratisch; LDD) is a conservative-liberal, libertarian, right-wing populist Flemish political party in Belgium. The party surprised commentators by winning five seats in the Chamber and one seat in the Senate in 2007, and eight seats in the 2009 Flemish Parliament election. The party remained with only one federal seat after the 2010 election. Previously known as List Dedecker, the party adopted its current name on 22 January 2011. From 2011 to 2014, the LDD's MEP, Derk Jan Eppink, was with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament. History The party was founded in January 2007 by Senator Jean-Marie Dedecker as List Dedecker also 'LDD'). Dedecker had left the New Flemish Alliance to found the LDD after the ''Cassandra'' think tank judged in 2006 that there was room for a right-wing conservative-liberal movement in the Flemish Community, expressing the need for a "common ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bart De Wever
Bart Albert Liliane De Wever ( born 21 December 1970) is a Belgian politician. Since 2004 De Wever has been the leader of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), a political party advocating for the independence of Flanders. He is also a member of the Chamber of Representatives. De Wever played a prominent role in the 2007 Belgian government formation and presided over his party's victory in the 2010 federal elections when N-VA became the largest party in both Flanders and in Belgium as a whole. Since January 2013 he has been Mayor of Antwerp, following the 2012 municipal elections. Biography De Wever was born in Mortsel and grew up in Kontich where his parents Irene and Henri owned a small supermarket. His father had previously worked for a Belgian railway company and was briefly active in the Vlaamse Militanten Orde before becoming a local administrator for the Volksunie. De Wever's older brother is historian and professor who teaches at Ghent University. His grandfather had b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Flemish Alliance
The New Flemish Alliance ( nl, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, N-VA) is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU). The N-VA is a regionalist and separatist movement that self-identifies with the promotion of civic nationalism.Manifesto of the New Flemish Alliance point 13: "Inclusion for newcomers" (in Dutch). It is considered part of the ; the party strives for the peaceful [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dirk Van Mechelen
Dirk Louis Maria Van Mechelen (born 27 August 1957) was the Flemish minister of Finance and Budget and Town and Country Planning. He is a member of the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats. Education He obtained a degree in history from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ..., Belgium) in 1980. Career He started his professional career at ''Buchmann Optical Industries'' in Kapellen, the company of Jacky Buchmann. In 1982, he started his political career in the municipal council of Kapellen. After the regional elections of 1999 he became Flemish minister of Town and Country Planning, Economy and Media. Since 2001 he is the mayor of Kapellen. After the regional elections of 2004 he became Flemish minister of Finance and Budget ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for conservatism and for tradition in general, tolerance, and ... individualism". John Dunn. ''Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future'' (1993). Cambridge University Press. . Liberals espouse various views depending on their understanding of these principles. However, they generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern times.Wolfe, p. 23.Adams, p. 11. Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Open Flemish Liberals And Democrats
french: Libéraux et démocrates flamands ouverts , abbreviation = Open Vld , logo = , leader1_title = President , leader1_name = Egbert Lachaert , foundation = 1992 (VLD)2007 (Open Vld) , predecessor = Party for Freedom and Progress , headquarters = Melsensstraat 34 Brussels , membership_year = 2018 , membership = 60,000 , ideology = , position = Centre-right , international = Liberal International , european = Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe , europarl = Renew Europe , affiliation1_title = Francophone counterpart , affiliation1 = Reformist Movement , affiliation2_title = Germanophone counterpart , affiliation2 = Party for Freedom and Progress , seats1_title = Chamber of Representatives , seats1 = , seats2_title = Senate , seats2 = , seats3_title = Flemish Parliament , seats3 = , seats4_title = Brussels ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |