After a summer full of doubt, the decision has been made: Jean-Marie Dedecker (71) will reappear on an N-VA list in June. He will even join the West Flemish parliamentary list as an independent, our editorial staff learned. Despite the ambitions of his son Dimitri, there will be no national List Dedecker.
Does he do it or doesn’t he do it? For a whole summer, a procession of politicians descended on Middelkerke to pull on Jean-Marie Dedecker’s arm. Vlaams Belang chairman Tom Van Grieken even brought a bouquet of flowers, in an attempt to at least persuade Dedecker not to submit an LDD list. But in the end, N-VA pulls the longest straw with a striking offer: the party leader position for the House. And Dedecker is taking the bait, as N-VA informed several party members today. A press conference will follow tomorrow.
In the 2019 elections, Dedecker already pushed the West Flemish Chamber List as an independent, but at the beginning of this year the idea grew to relaunch Lijst Dedecker – which still exists locally today, including in Middelkerke itself – nationally. Or at least in the province of West Flanders.
A poor West Flemish poll by the right-wing news website Doorbraak – in which LDD would not reach the electoral threshold and N-VA also received a pledge in favor of Vlaams Belang – prompted N-VA to make a ‘best and final offer’. West Flemish CEO Sander Loones – who has already caused two federal secretaries of state to resign – is prepared to move to the Flemish level.
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