They are the friends of the multinationals, the friends of the medieval conservatives, the friends of Putin and other dictators
Over a quarter (25.5%) of people in Flanders say they will vote for the far-right, Flemish-nationalist Vlaams Belang at the 2024 elections. Party leader Tom Van Grieken is now in the top three most popular politicians in the region, a new poll by Het Laatste Nieuws and VTM Nieuws shows.
The poll was conducted at the end of November, with 1.5 years to go before the May 2024 elections. Still, the results show that Vlaams Belang's success during the 2019 elections – where it won 18.7% of the votes, 12% more than the previous elections – will seemingly continue.
As 25.5% of Flemish people now want to vote for Vlaams Belang, only the Flemish rightwing N-VA and socialist Vooruit parties can stay somewhat close, with 22% and 16.1%, respectively. Even counted together, Christian democrats CD&V (9.6%), liberal Open Vld (9.3%), and ecologists Groen (8.7%) only have a handful of percentage points more than the far-right party.
During the 2019 elections, Vlaams Belang election campaign focused heavily on the theme of pensions. Today, Vlaams Belang is mainly targetting the Federal and Flemish governments' insufficient protection of people's purchasing power and the growing energy poverty.
Political experts have argued that the party's strong growth is mostly due to the weak social policy of the current government(s). They also added that extremist parties traditionally do well in times of crisis – which Belgium has seen a lot of in recent years.
For the traditional parties the situation is gradually becoming catastrophic. Disaster threatens them in 2024.