Flemish nationalists score big election breakthrough

Flemish nationalist leader Bart De Wever scored a breakthrough win in local elections Sunday and immediately called on Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo to radically re-shape the federal state. Hailing a "historic" victory in Antwerp City Hall after his opponent conceded defeat before all the results were in, De Wever said Di Rupo and his federal coalition partners should "assume your responsibility." "We need full reform to enable both Flanders and Wallonia (Belgium's French-speaking south) to look after their own affairs," he said, adding that this would allow Belgium as a whole to "find a path of solidarity." With two-thirds of the votes counted shortly after 7:30 pm (1730 GMT), De Wever's New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) had 36.4 percent and Socialist incumbent mayor Patrick Janssens around 29.5 percent. "We have lost these elections -- we must admit that," Janssens said. "We have to congratulate those who have won, that means the N-VA and especially Bart De Wever." After some 90 years under Socialist control, victory in the northern port city of Antwerp, the country's economic heart, opens a tense new chapter in a deepening tussle between Belgium's Dutch- and French-speaking halves. "De Wever has easily won his gamble," said Pascal Delwit, a political scientist at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. The N-VA's nationalist "wave" that first emerged in 2010 national polls "surges forward" and will lead to "either break-up or confederation," Delwit said, referring to a so far loosely defined relationship that may involve something close to full fiscal autonomy for the country's two halves. On the eve of the election, De Wever told a rally that "the Flemish have had enough of being treated like cows only good for their milk," lambasting the Socialist-run, French-speaking and largely poorer south. Across Flanders, the wealthier north of the country and home to some six-million people, the N-VA was scoring 20-30 percent, compared with just five percent in the last municipal polls six years ago. While French-speaking Socialists did customarily well in Wallonia, if the preliminary outcome is confirmed, then De Wever, 41, will be well placed to confront a central government in Brussels which he considers "illegitimate". "It's a personal failure for Elio Di Rupo," said Olivier Maingain of the FDF party of Francophone federalists as the results came in. "It's dramatic but it was predictable," Maingain said, looking ahead to the inevitable strains likely in the run-up to 2014 general elections. Some 7.8 million voters picked councillors and mayors at regional level across essentially Dutch-speaking Flanders, mostly French-speaking Wallonia and the federal Brussels capital region. De Wever had told AFP on the hustings that he was using the elections as a calculated "stepping stone" aimed at pressuring what he considers an "illegitimate" central government. "If we can take Antwerp, then we are waking up in a different country," De Wever said a week before the polls. Keeping a low profile throughout the campaign, Di Rupo and other Belgian parties supporting a unitary state in the fragile, six-party coalition, resisted rising to De Wever's baiting. With the vote promising a shake-up in Belgium, it also has wider resonance as the eurozone debt crisis tests loyalties in the European Union. Catalonia is pushing for fiscal autonomy from Spain going into November 25 elections, while on Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron will sign terms in Edinburgh with the leader of Scotland's government on a 2014 referendum on full independence. Belgium has a complicated proportional voting system which means much horse-trading to find coalitions will now take place. "That's for tomorrow," De Wever said.