Ninove - City Politics - 2007 - Current

Current

During the January 2, 2007 elections of the OCMW council, one member of the VLD fraction voted for a candidate of Vlaams Belang, making the VLD lose 1 seat. After an investigation led by the local chapter of the VLD, it was announced that the person they suspected to be the culprit was Schepen Mariette De Smet. De Smet announced she would leave the VLD, but would remain in the council of the mayor and aldermen as an independent. Her colleagues in the council stripped her of all her duties, but after a few months she regained a few of them. On January 9, 2008, De Smet, fellow VLD schepen Corijn, and another VLD member of the city council announced they were joining LDD, leaving the VLD-CD&V with a brittle one seat majority on the city council. The LDD alderman however elected to stay in the majority, making for a brittle coalition. On May 5, 2009 a Vlaams Belang councilmember defected to the LDD. In 2009 mayor Luc Durant announced he would resign due to health reasons. He was replaced in September by Michel Casteur. In 2010 an other VB councilmember left the party to become an independent. In January 2011 Mariette De Smet announced she would join the Vlaams Belang lead chartel list "Forza Ninove" and left LDD. She was then again stripped of her duties by her fellow aldermen. On July 27, 2011 De Smet was murdered in a murder-suicide by her lover. She was replaced as alderman by a member of the VLD.

The next municipal elections are to be held sometime in October 2012.

Read more about this topic:  Ninove, City Politics, 2007

Famous quotes containing the word current:

    Men perceive that equating love and domestic work is a trap. They fear that to get involved with housework would send them hurtling into the bottomless pit of self-sacrifice that is women’s current caring roles.
    Debbie Taylor (20th century)

    It is a quite remarkable fact that the great religions of the most civilized peoples are more deeply fraught with sadness than the simpler beliefs of earlier societies. This certainly does not mean that the current of pessimism is eventually to submerge the other, but it proves that it does not lose ground and that it does not seem destined to disappear.
    Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)

    It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in the memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a woman’s adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.
    Terri Apter (20th century)