Meyrem Almaci | |
---|---|
Member of the Flemish Parliament | |
Assumed office 26 May 2019 | |
Party President of Groen | |
In office 15 November 2014 –11 June 2022 | |
Preceded by | Wouter Van Besien |
Succeeded by | Jeremie Vaneeckhout and Nadia Naji as party co-presidents |
Member of the Chamber of Representatives | |
In office 10 June 2007 –12 June 2010 | |
In office 13 June 2010 –24 May 2014 | |
In office 25 May 2014 –25 May 2019 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Sint-Niklaas,Belgium | 25 February 1976
Nationality | Belgian/Turkish |
Political party | Groen |
Residence | Borgerhout (Antwerp) |
Occupation | Politician |
Website | Official website |
Meyrem Almaci (Sint-Niklaas,25 February 1976) is a Belgian politician from Flanders and member of the ecological party Groen. On 10 June 2007,she was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for the first time. She was re-elected in 2010 and in 2014 when she also became the president of Groen. In 2019 she left the Belgian parliament and was elected in the Flemish Parliament.
Almaci was born to a Turkish immigrant family hailing from Kozluçay in Yalvaç,Isparta Province. She had 10 siblings,two of whom died young. [1] She has Turkish-Belgian dual citizenship and is married with two children.
Almaci obtained a master's degree in comparative cultural studies at the University of Ghent and a bachelor's degree in Social Work,option Socio-cultural work. From 2002 to 2007,she worked as a scientific assistant on research projects on study choice and study success of immigrants in higher education at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the KU Leuven.
Almaci came to Groen because of the environmental theme. She was a member of the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace and was concerned about the lack of a sustainable economy. [2] In 2000 she founded a branch of Agalev,the predecessor of Groen,in her then hometown of Sint-Gillis-Waas and became a councilor from 2001 to 2006. In 2006 she moved to Berchem,where she became a district councilor for a while in 2007. Because of her move to Deurne she had to leave the Berchem district council. From 2005 to 2006 she was spokesperson and chairperson of Jong Groen from 2006 to 2007.
In 2007 the party chose Almaci to become the leader of the Antwerp constituency for the 2007 federal elections. Almaci was elected to the Belgian House of Representatives with 14,628 preferential votes. Almaci was appointed co-chair of the joint green caucus formed out of members of the Dutch-speaking party Groen and the francophone party Ecolo. Almaci shared this responsibility with the Ecolo-politicians Jean-Marc Nollet ,Muriel Gerkens and Olivier Deleuze .
On 6 July 2010,she took the oath of office for the second time as a member of the Chamber of Representatives for the Ecolo-Groen faction. With 25,100 preferential votes [3] she also helped Kristof Calvo get elected to a second seat for Groen in the Antwerp constituency. Later that year,she was elected party leader. She passed the caucus chairmanship in 2012 to fellow MP Stefaan Van Hecke.
In 2014,she received 44,150 preferential votes as party leader in the elections,which allowed her to extend her mandate in the House. [4] In the 2019 elections,she did not represent herself again for the Belgian federal parliament,but instead presented herself for the Flemish Parliament in the same Antwerp Constituency. [5] She was elected with 50,848 preference votes. [6]
In addition to the annual budget control,Almaci mainly specialized in financial files and the government budget. She mainly drew attention during the 2007–2008 financial crisis and in particular in the so-called Dexia Special Committee. Almaci repeatedly asked for this 'Special Committee' to be turned into a committee with investigative powers to be able to demand the lead actors and have them testify under oath. The MPs of the ruling parties refused to do so.
In the Chamber,Almaci was among others:
In the municipal elections of October 2012,Almaci was the leader in Antwerp. She was elected with 8037 preferential votes. [7] Before the new legislature,she was appointed as group leader for her party in the municipal council. [8] Due to her election as party chairwoman,she resigned from the city council in 2015. [9] In the 2018 local elections,she supported the Antwerp Green list from the last spot on the list. [10] Despite being just a supporting candidate,Almaci was nevertheless elected as a councilor with 8,414 preferential votes, [11] but decided not to take her seat.
On September 21,2014,Almaci applied to become party chairwoman of Groen. [12] She took on Jeremie Vaneeckhout as a running mate. She competed against Elke Van den Brandt,at the time an MP in the Brussels Regional Parliament. On November 15,2014,Almaci was elected president with 60% of the vote. [13]
In September 2019,it was announced that Almaci was running for a second term as party chairwoman,this time with Dany Neudt as candidate vice chair. [14] She was re-elected with 53.2 percent of the vote. [15]
In March 2022,she announced her early retirement as chair. [16] [17] She said she wanted to spend more time with her family and for internal renewal,although since the start of her second term she has been increasingly confronted with internal criticism about the way she led the party. For example,there was some dissatisfaction about the fact that then caucus leader Kristof Calvo was passed over as minister when the new Belgian federal government was formed in October 2020. Pending the election of a new chairman,Almaci remained on as acting chairman. She continued to exercise her office as a Flemish Member of Parliament.
Groen,founded as Agalev,is a green Flemish political party in Belgium. The main pillars of the party are social justice,human rights,and ecologism. Its French-speaking equivalent is Ecolo;the two parties maintain close relations with each other.
The Belgian provincial,municipal and district elections of 2006 took place on Sunday 8 October 2006. The electors have elected the municipal councillors of 589 cities and towns as well as the ten provincial councils. The voters in the town of Antwerp have also been able to vote for the city's district councils. In seven Flemish municipalities with a special language statute and in the Walloon municipality of Comines-Warneton the aldermen and the members of the OCMW/CPAS council have also been directly elected.
Magdalena Godelieve HildaAelvoet is a Belgian politician in Flanders. She was a provincial senator for Antwerp between 1985 and 1991 and a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for the district of Leuven between 1991 and 1994,when she also served in the Flemish Council. She was a member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 1999,where she was the chair of the Greens. Aelvoet was appointed deputy prime minister and the Minister of Consumer Affairs,Public Health and the Environment in the Verhofstadt I government between 1999 and 2002 and became a Minister of State in 1995.
Wouter Van Besien is a Belgian politician. From 25 October 2009 until 15 November 2014,he was the chairman of the ecologist party Groen.
Jan Jambon is a Belgian businessman and politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) who served as Minister-President of Flanders from 2019 to 2024. He replaced Kris Peeters as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2007. The N-VA was,at that time,partnered with the Christian-Democratic and Flemish party. In June 2010 and May 2014 he was re-elected on an N-VA list.
Nadia Sminate is a Belgian politician and is affiliated to the N-VA. She was elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2010.
The Belgian provincial,municipal and district elections of 2012 took place on 14 October. As with the previous 2006 elections,these are no longer organised by the Belgian federal state but instead by the respective regions:
Peter Mertens is a Belgian politician who led the Workers' Party of Belgium from 2008 to 2021. He has served as a member of the Chamber of Representatives since 2019,and as a municipal councilor in Antwerp since 2013.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 26 May 2019,alongside the country's European and regional elections. All 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected from eleven multi-member constituencies.
The Belgian provincial,municipal and district elections of 2018 took place on Sunday 14 October 2018. They are organised by the respective regions:
Antwerp is one of the 11 multi-member constituencies of the Chamber of Representatives,the lower house of the Belgian Federal Parliament,the national legislature of Belgium. The constituency was established in 2003 following the re-organisation of constituencies across Belgium along provincial lines. It is conterminous with the province of Antwerp. The constituency currently elects 24 of the 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2019 federal election the constituency had 1,341,450 registered electors.
Zakia Khattabi is a Belgian-Moroccan politician who was the co-president of the Ecolo party.
In Belgium,the government formation of 2019–2020 started one day after the federal elections,regional elections and European elections which were all held simultaneously on 26 May 2019. These formations were only the second under King Philippe.
The 2024 European Parliament election in Belgium was held on 9 June 2024 in the three Belgian constituencies to elect the Belgian delegation to the European Parliament. It is part of the 2024 European Parliament election and the 2024 Belgian elections. It was the tenth European Parliament election held in Belgium,and the first to take place after Brexit.
The duty to vote in Belgium belongs to all adult Belgians. EU citizens can vote in European and municipal elections. Other foreigners have local voting rights when they have lived in the country for more than five years. Attendance is compulsory for Belgians in Belgium,not doing so results in a fine,3 fines equals the loss of civil rights.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 9 June 2024. The Chamber of Representatives received 150 members with five-year terms. European and regional elections took place on the same day.
The 2024 Belgian provincial,municipal and district elections took place on Sunday 13 October 2024,four months after the simultaneous European,federal and regional elections.
Jeremie Vaneeckhout is a Belgian politician and co-president of Groen together with Nadia Naji.
Nadia Naji is a Belgian politician and co-president of Groen together with Jeremie Vaneeckhout.
Joris Vandenbroucke is a Belgian politician and member of the Chamber of Representatives. A member of Vooruit,he has represented East Flanders since June 2019. He was a member of the Flemish Parliament from June 2005 to June 2009 and from June 2014 to May 2019.
Media related to Meyrem Almaci at Wikimedia Commons