According to the annual opinion survey by the public broadcaster and our sister newspaper De Standaard, the gap between Vlaams Belang and first pursuer N-VA is becoming particularly large. While it has fluctuated around 5 percent in most political polls so far, it is now almost double that. Tom Van Grieken’s party wins almost 10 percent compared to the 2019 election result, reaching 27.8 percent. If this were to be the case on June 9, it would be the highest score ever for the far-right party.
Below the symbolic limit
There is much less good news for the Flemish nationalists. They dip below the symbolically important limit of 20 percent and only get 18.9 percent, 6.6 percent less than in the 2019 elections. It is the first time since December 2020 that Bart De Wever and co have gotten less than 20 percent. . At the time, they were very close to 19.9 percent – in a poll by VTM and HLN. Now that’s a lot more.
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N-VA chairman Bart De Wever (left), together with Tom Van Grieken, chairman of Vlaams Belang. — © EPA-EFE
The peloton of other parties follows at a considerable distance. The Flemish socialists are also now in the lead there. Vooruit clocks in at 13.7 percent, significantly more than the 10 percent of the elections, but less than in the polls during Conner Rousseau’s heyday.
Closer
CD&V has 11.3 percent, just ahead of Raoul Hedebouw’s Labor Party. The PVDA can win 10.7 percent of the electoral intentions. Open VLD does stand for Green and gets just under 9 percent (8.9 percent). Green is bottom with 8.2 percent.
N-VA chairman Bart De Wever remains by far the most popular politician in Flanders in the pop poll. When asked who do you feel best represented by, 11.3 percent mentioned their name. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) is in second place with 7.8 percent. He has the hot breath on the neck of Vlaams Belang chairman Tom Van Grieken (7.6 percent). PVDA leader Raoul Hedebouw (2.8 percent) is in fourth place. It is striking that PVDA has someone else in the top 10 with Jos D’Haese – in 9th place.
Former Vooruit chairman Conner Rousseau. — © Fred Debrock
Better than other presidents
Former Vooruit chairman Conner Rousseau falls from place 2 (last year) to place 5, but has been away from politics for several months. His successor Melissa Depraetere is also quite well known to the general public. She is at 12 and is immediately doing better than other party chairmen such as Sammy Mahdi (CD&V), Tom Ongena (Open VLD) and the green co-chairmen Jeremie Eeckhout and Nadia Naji.
Hilde Crevits (CD&V), Petra De Sutter (Groen), Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V), Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit), Zuhal Demir (N-VA) and Theo Francken complete the top 10. Van Peteghem and Vandenbroucke, and Demir and D’Haese are tied.
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