Political Participation
At the federal level, several deputies and senators have been elected or coopted to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and Senate. Among them, the Flemish Socialists Cemal Çavdarlı (deputy in 2003-2007) and Fatma Pehlivan (senator in 2001-2007, and again in 2009-2010), the Flemish Ecologists Meryem Kaçar (senator in 1999-2003) and Meyrem Almacı (deputy since 2007, reelected in 2010), the Flemish Christian Democrat Hilâl Yalçın (deputy in 2007-2010), the N-VA attorney Zuhal Demir (deputy since June 2010) and French-speaking Socialist Özlem Özen (deputy since June 2010). Kaçar, Cavdarlı and Pehlivan are Ghent residents, Almacı and Demir are Antwerp residents Yalçın comes from the Limburg province and Ozen from the Walloon province of Hainaut.
There are also Turkish-Belgian members of the regional parliaments, one of them, Emir Kir (French-speaking Socialist Party), became an underminister in the Brussels regional government in 2004, and again in 2009, as Secretary for Public Sanitation and Monument Conservation.
A dozen Turkish-Belgian municipal councillors became échevin or schepen (alderman) after the 2006 municipal elections, mostly in Flanders or the Brussels Region, plus a few in Wallonia.
Read more about this topic: Turks In Belgium
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