Bart De Wever

Bart Albert Liliane De Wever ( born 21 December 1970) is a Belgian politician.

Since 2004, De Wever has been the leader of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), a political party advocating for the independence of Flanders.

He is also a member of the Chamber of Representatives.

In 2004, he was elected as party leader of the N-VA with 95% of the votes, being the only candidate up for election.

Initially, the N-VA had followed the political style of the People's Union by characterizing itself as a big tent party; however, under De Wever's leadership the N-VA took on a conservative identity and has seen a rise in support since.

De Wever went through a rough stretch in 2006, when he accepted the conservative-liberal Jean-Marie Dedecker as an N-VA member, causing a split with the CD&V party.

In order to reconcile the party, Dedecker had to leave.

Although he was extensively criticised, the local N-VA leaders permitted De Wever to remain as N-VA president.

In the 2009 regional elections, his party won an unexpectedly high 13% of the votes, making N-VA the overall winner of the elections together with old cartel partner CD&V.

N-VA subsequently joined the government, with De Wever choosing to remain party president and appointing two other party members as ministers in the Flemish Government and one party member as speaker of the Flemish Parliament.

De Wever presided over his party's victory in the 2010 federal elections when N-VA became the largest party in both Flanders and in Belgium as a whole.

Under his presidency his party gained around 30% of the votes in Flanders during federal elections held on 13 June 2010.

De Wever himself won the most preference votes of the Dutch-speaking region (nearly 800,000).

De Wever visited former British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street on a number of occasions and maintained contact with Boris Johnson during his time as Mayor of London.

In 2012, De Wever undertook a crash diet and lost 60 kilos.

His physical transformation was noted by the Belgian media and he subsequently published a book advising on weight loss.

De Wever has cited marathon running as his main interest outside of politics.

In addition to Dutch, De Wever speaks French, English and German.

De Wever initially started his political career as a member of the Volksunie (People's Union) party, which his father had belonged to, and was elected as a municipal councilor in Berchem for the party.

During the ideological splits in the Volksunie, De Wever became part of the so-called Oranjehofgroep along with Frieda Brepoels, Eric Defoort, Ben Weyts and Geert Bourgeois.

The Oranjehofgroup was a political clique within the Volksunie composed of right-wing, conservative-liberal and Flemish nationalist members who opposed the left-orientated direction the party was being taken under Bert Anciaux.

The members of the Oranjehofgroep would later found the N-VA together.

Since January 2013, he has been Mayor of Antwerp, following the 2012 municipal elections.

De Wever was born in Mortsel and grew up in Kontich, where his parents Irene and Henri owned a small supermarket.

His father had previously worked for a Belgian railway company and was briefly active in the Vlaamse Militanten Orde before becoming a local administrator for the Volksunie.

De Wever's older brother is historian and professor Bruno de Wever, who teaches at Ghent University.

His grandfather had been the secretary of the Flemish National Union, a Flemish far-right party from the interwar period that had been recognised as the ruling party of Flanders during the Nazi occupation of Belgium.

However, during an interview, Bart De Wever nuanced his grandfather's past by claiming he had not collaborated with the Nazis.

De Wever began studying a law degree at the University of Antwerp, but dropped out before switching to study History at Saint Ignatius University Centre, Antwerp and then the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), graduating with a licentiate (equivalent of the master's degree) followed by a PhD in History.

As a student he was a member of the classical liberal Liberaal Vlaams Studentenverbond (LVSV, Liberal Flemish Students' Union) and the conservative Katholiek Vlaams Hoogstudentenverbond (KVHV, Catholic Flemish Students' Union) of Antwerp and Leuven.

He is a former editor-in-chief of the KVHV newspapers Tegenstroom (magazine of KVHV in Antwerp) and Ons Leven (in Leuven).

After graduating, he was employed as a research assistant working on the Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging (New Encyclopedia of the Flemish Movement) and published a biography of controversial Flemish politician Joris Van Severen.

De Wever is married to a Dutch national, with whom he has four children.

They live together in Deurne.

After the 2019 federal election, De Wever has shown interest to make a new political centre-right movement.

His goal is to reduce the number of political parties in parliament and go to a more American and British style parliament with fractions within larger parties (drawing on the Conservative and Labour and Republican Party and Democratic Party dualism in the UK and USA respectively).

De Wever has expressed his desire to attract CD&V, Open VLD and some Vlaams Belang voters.

Joachim Coens, former leader of CD&V, supports the idea and argues it would make future government formations easier.

In November 2020, he was reelected leader of the N-VA with 96.8% of the votes for a new three-year mandate.

This made De Wever the longest serving leader of a Belgian political party.