Political Career
Dewinter was already politically active during his high school years at the Sint-Franciscus-Xaverius instituut in Bruges. In 1978, as a 16-year old, he founded the Flemish Student Action Group (Vlaamse Studenten Actie Groep), that later was transformed into the Nationalist Young Students League (Nationalistisch Jong Studenten Verbond). In that year he was briefly a member of the Flemish People's Party (Vlaamse Volkspartij). In September 1982, he moved to Antwerp, where he did not complete his first year (candidate) in political and social sciences at the University of Antwerp, and became a member of the Nationalist Student Society (Nationalistische Studentenvereniging), one of the ideological seminaries of the Vlaams Belang. In 1983, he became a member of the Flemish Block (Vlaams Blok). He completed a journalist degree at the Erasmus College (Erasmus Handelsschool) in 1985. In November 1987, he was elected member of the Belgian parliament, in which he formed a political faction with Gerolf Annemans (who, earlier that year, had succeeded to founder-Flemish Block president Karel Dillen). Under Dewinter's leadership, the parliamentary group continued to grow, notably in 1991, when the Flemish Block, from a small party, grew to about 12% of the voters. This growth has continued ever since, though it success is starting to decline due to the rise of other parties like e.g. Lijst Dedecker.
In 1988, he also became a City councilman in Antwerp. When the Flemish Parliament and the Belgian Parliament got elected separately in 1995, he chose to be a member of the Flemish Parliament (which deals with a lot of regional matters). His hard statements on especially foreign migration provided for victories in the elections of 1999 and 2003 for the Flemish Parliament. Dewinter was, together with Gerolf Annemans, the author of the notorious '70-puntenplan' published in the beginning of the 1990s, a policy paper consisting of 70 articles.
In 2006 he was quoted in Bye-bye Belgium, which was seen as a break of the cordon sanitaire by some Belgian politicians.
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