2024-10-05 10:00:03
It is “the candidate who sends the traditional parties into panic », was the headline on the front page of the Brussels newspaper on 28 September The last hour. On October 13, the day of the municipal (called “municipal”) elections in Belgium, Fouad Ahidar still hopes to celebrate his 51st birthday at the same time as his success in these elections. His formation, Team Fouad Ahidar, will be present in around ten of the nineteen municipalities that make up the Brussels-Capital Region and intends to influence the composition of future majorities. The former social worker now sees even further: the confused political situation resulting from the vote on 9 June has, it is true, transformed him into a possible arbiter for the establishment of a regional government.
“In the eyes of some I was an Islamist; here I am, a coach [du gouvernement régional] ! »this smiling, talkative and impulsive giant, very popular in the north of the region, particularly within the large Arab-Muslim community, recently joked. Encounter The world A few days ago he was also thinking about a possible ministerial portfolio: home, social affairs, cleanliness and the fight against noise pollution are his favorite topics, he explained. Just like the fight against harassment, a phenomenon he says he suffered from for twelve years when he was young.
His speech goes beyond communities of foreign origin: Fouad Ahidar is now more popular than many left-wing elected officials, including the outgoing president of the region, the French-speaking socialist Rudi Vervoort. On 9 June, his “Team”, to everyone’s surprise, obtained three seats out of the 17 guaranteed to the Flemish minority in the regional parliament of Brussels-Capital, where the French speakers have 72 elected representatives. In this bilingual region, for the formation of the government and the appointment of a minister-president it is necessary for a majority to emerge on both the Dutch and French-speaking sides. Overall complex, this negotiation seems, this time, to have become almost impossible given the dispersion of representation between six Flemish parties. The person who was vice-president of the regional assembly for five years still believed himself capable of solving the equation but, on Friday 4 October, he announced that he would put “on pause” negotiations with other parties.
Sultry reputation
Practicing Muslim, former advisor to a Flemish nationalist minister, member of the Flemish Socialist Party before being excluded in 2022 for his refusal to condemn the ritual slaughter of animals, the perfectly bilingual elected official, it is true, enjoys a sulphurous reputation fueled by his speech described as communal by his opponents, by his contacts with a radical preacher from Molenbeek, by his defense of the wearing of the veil, even for those in positions of authority, or by statements made in October 2023 on Hamas attacks terrorists. A “small answer” to politics “genocidal” carried out for seventy-five years by Israel towards the Palestinians, he stated, before apologizing a few days later and specifying that “Every death is one death too many”.
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