Anke Maria Flor Van dermeersch (born 27 October 1972) is a Belgian politician, former model and

beauty pageant A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...

titleholder who was crowned

Miss Belgium Miss Belgium is a national beauty pageant in Belgium. The winner of Miss Belgium automatically represents her country at the Miss World and Miss Universe pageants if the dates do not overlap. Rules *Belgian nationality *to be never married and ...

1991 and represented

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 th ...

at Miss World 1991 and

Miss Universe 1992 Miss Universe 1992, the 41st Miss Universe pageant, was held on 9 May 1992 at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand. Seventy-eight contestants competed in this year. Michelle McLean of Namibia was crowned by Lupita Jo ...

Pageantry

Anke Van dermeersch rose to attention in

during a modelling career, becoming

in 1992 and representing her country at

Miss World 1991 Miss World 1991, the 41st edition of the Miss World pageant, was held on 28 December 1991 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The winner was Ninibeth Leal representing Venezuela. She was crowned by Gina Toll ...

and

Political career

Van dermeersch became a directly elected Belgian senator in 2003 for the

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...

party

Vlaams Blok ''Vlaams Blok'' ( en, Flemish Block, or VB) was the name of a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform.Erk, 2005, pp. 493-502. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence ...

and later

Vlaams Belang , ideology = , predecessor = Vlaams Blok , position = , europarl = Identity and Democracy , european = Identity and Democracy Party , youth_wing = Vlaams Belang Jongeren , colours = , ...

. Since 2019, she has been a member of the

Flemish parliament The Flemish Parliament (Dutch: , formerly called Flemish Council or ''Vlaamse Raad'') constitutes the legislative power in Flanders for matters which fall within the competence of Flanders, both as a geographic region and as a cultural communi ...

. She has also been the leader of a

counter-jihad Counter-jihad, also spelled counterjihad and known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and campaign organisations all linked by apocalyptic beli ...

group called Women Against Islamisation.

Personal life

She is married with two children and trained as a lawyer.

Notes

1972 births 21st-century Belgian politicians 21st-century Belgian women politicians Belgian beauty pageant winners Belgian female models Belgian women lawyers Counter-jihad activists Models from Antwerp Living people Members of the Belgian Federal Parliament Miss Universe 1992 contestants Miss World 1991 delegates Politicians from Antwerp Vlaams Belang politicians Miss Belgium winners 21st-century Belgian lawyers 21st-century women lawyers Beauty queen-politicians {{Flanders-politician-stub