For the first time ever the far-right party Vlaams Belang will be part of a municipal coalition. Two local parties, PIT and Vrij Ranst, have decided to form a coalition with Vlaams Belang. The party will have one Alderman in the municipal cabinet. The decision to form a coalition with the far-right party is historic as it is the first time that the so-called “cordon santitair”, an agreement between other parties not to cooperate or form coalitions with the far-right, has been breached.
Ranst is a prosperous municipality with a population of 20,000 just over 10km southeast of Antwerp. On Saturday the municipality hit the headlines when the party of the incumbent Mayor PIT (made up of Christian democrats) and the liberal Vrij Ranst list announced that they would be forming a coalition with Vlaams Belang.
On hearing the news the national leadership of both the Flemish Christian democrat party CD&V and the Flemish liberal party Open VLD expelled the councilors elected on the PIT and Vrij Ranst lists. The woman that headed the Vlaams Belang list, Christel Engelen, will be a municipal Alderman once the new coalition takes office. As part of the coalition agreement the Vlaams Belang group on the local council will go under the name “Ons Ranst” (Our Ranst).
Vlaams Belang’s leader Tom Van Grieken believes that Ranst is just the first of several municipalities in which his party will be invited to join the coalition.
Local politics, national news
Following the announcement by PIT and Vrij Ranst that they are to form a coalition, local politics in the quiet municipality in the Antwerp commuter belt become national headline news.
The Francophone media responded with dismay, while in Flanders the events in Ranst were put into perspective and the consensus among commentators is that it was a local decision and it would not cause a “domino effect” whereby the far-right would been invited to join coalitions in other municipalities.
The decision by PIT and Vrij Ranst to form a coalition with Vlaams Belang led to their members’ expulsion from the Flemish Christian democrat party (CD&V) and the Flemish liberal party (Open VLD).