Kris Vleugels not yet elected into federal senate

Leader of C'axent and ECPM board member Kris Vleugels was not elected into the Belgian federal senate last sunday. The Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) Vleugels stood for gained seats in the senate and with his ninth place on the list he would have been elected had not some candidates lower on the list surpassed him in their number of preferential votes.

Kris Vleugels and Mark Verhaegen

Vleugels won 41.079 votes and has the best score of all the CD&V senatorial candidates except for the nine elected. Kris Vleugels has therefore told CD&V-chairman Van Deurzen that he is candidate to become a co-opted senator. Kris Vleugels comments: "Because I was nominated in the nick of time, I bearly had the time to prepare my campaign and I didn't make any media appearances. Nevertheless my result is fantastic. I think this is to do with my political movement C'axent, which appeals to a certain group of voters, namely believers. (..) This is corroborated by my almost equally high score in West-Flanders as in my home-province of Limburg."

C'axent members enter federal chamber of representatives

Mia de Schampelaere (former senator) and Mark Verhaegen (mayor), both members of C'axent were elected into the federal chamber of representatives by the constituency of Antwerp. The constituency of West-Flanders elected Luc Goutry into the chamber, he is not a member of C'axent, but was recommended by Vleugels since he represents similar ideas.

Federal Christian Democrats (CDF) reflect on their campaign

Whilst in Flanders C'axent achieved a good result, the other Belgian ECPM member organisation, the CDF that stood candidates in Brussels and Wallonia gained no seats in parliament and actually achieved a worse result than in the 2003 federal elections. CDF is currently evaluating its campaign and strategies. To analyse the bad result for the CDF one might say that the past elections were far more exciting than previous elections in the french-speaking community. This is evident since the liberal Mouvement Reformateur won from the socialists for the first time since the First World War. Since so much was at stake between the big parties, some CDF voters may have been lured to a bigger party. In any case it is much harder for a relatively new, small party without subsidy than it is for the large, subsidised, established parties to run a good campaign.

Sources: www.dekamer.be; www.krisvleugels.be; Yves LAMBRIX, "Senaat is m'n biotoop" Het belang van Limburg.; www.cdf-info.be.