Poor electoral result may signal decline for Belgian far-right

BRUSSELS - A poorer than anticipated showing by the anti-immigrant and separatist Flemish Interest party in its stronghold of Antwerp in weekend municipal elections buoyed hopes that the rise of the extreme right could be slowing in Belgium.

Flemish Interest became the biggest party in Antwerp, one of the world's major ports, in 1994. But in Sunday's election, it was overtaken in the city by a surging Socialist party, which won 35.3 percent of the vote.

The nationalist party's performance was below expectations, with a small increase of 0.5 of a percentage point from the previous election to 33.5 percent.

"Where the Flemish Interest started, the decline has set in," said incumbent Antwerp mayor Patrick Janssens.

But the result in Antwerp belied another good election night for Flemish Interest, which surged well beyond its traditional strongholds and into the small cities and villages of the northern Belgian region of Flanders, often the key to political domination.

Based on the provincial results, the anti-immigrant party rose to 20.6 percent, up from 14.9 percent six years ago, to win the second largest number of votes in Flanders overall after the Christian Democrats and beat the governing Liberal Democrats and Socialists.

"There is no way to disregard this victory," party Chairman Frank Vanhecke said after Sunday's voting. "This is a landslide victory."

The party became the biggest in old industrial centers like Boom and Aalst and surged almost across the board in wealthy Flanders, where 6 million of Belgium's 10.5 million citizens live.

Where the far-right party lost or stabilized, party leaders blamed it on immigrants, arguing that a quick naturalization process approved over the past years allowed the newcomers to dilute its popularity.

Yet after witnessing one election success after another for the extreme right since 1991, even a small setback for the Flemish Interest was worth a major celebration by its rivals. For a dozen elections in a row, the Flemish Interest had won, sometimes by large margins, and every election was invariably called a "Black Sunday.?

Now, Patrick Janssens, who led a rainbow coalition of Socialists, Liberals, Christian Democrats and Greens in the city of 460,000 people,is the region's new hero.

Flemish Interest attributes its success to efforts to tap into concerns over a perceived rise in crime, degradation of inner-city neighborhoods, and an increase in asylum seekers and illegal immigrant.

For years, Belgium's traditional parties and much of the mainstream media have been doing their utmost to contain the spread of the extreme right. They have ostracized the party, heaping one Nazi metaphor on top of another and entering unlikely coalitions to keep them out of government.

The success comes one week after a good showing for the extreme right in Austria, where two such parties won more than 15 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections.