This article needs to be updated.(September 2022) |
Sammy Mahdi | |
---|---|
Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration | |
In office 1 October 2020 –27 June 2022 | |
Monarch | Philippe |
Prime Minister | Alexander De Croo |
Preceded by | Maggie De Block |
Succeeded by | Nicole de Moor |
Member of the Chamber of Representatives | |
In office 17 March 2020 –1 October 2020 | |
Constituency | Flemish Brabant |
Personal details | |
Born | Ixelles,Brussels,Belgium | 21 September 1988
Political party | CD&V |
Alma mater | Vrije Universiteit Brussel |
Occupation | Politician |
Sammy Mahdi (born 21 September 1988) is a Belgian Christian-Democrat politician,a member and the president of CD&V,who in March 2020 became a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives.
On 1 October 2020,Mahdi became Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration in the new government led by Alexander De Croo. In June 2022,he became the president of the CD&V party.
Mahdi was born in Ixelles (Brussels) to an Iraqi refugee father and a Flemish mother. [1] He studied political science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and obtained a master's degree in international and European law. From 2014 to 2017,he was a parliamentary assistant to Flemish Member of Parliament Joris Poschet. Since 2016 he is also a regular columnist for the newspaper De Morgen .
After being a board member of Jong CD&V since 2015,in 2017 Mahdi became the chair of the youth section of CD&V, [2] re-elected in 2019. [3]
From 2015 to 2017,Mahdi was chairman of the CD&V section of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. In the last year,Mahdi moved to Vilvoorde, [4] where he became a board member of the local CD&V section. Since January 2019 he is also a municipal councilor of Vilvoorde and chairman of the CD&V faction in the city council.
In October 2019 he ran to succeed Wouter Beke as party leader, [5] in what became a close race with Joachim Coens,who in the final round won due to greater support in West Flanders and among elderly party members. [6]
After several years involved in party organisation and in local politics,Mahdi was elected a reserve member of the Chamber of Representatives for the constituency of Flemish Brabant in the 2019 Belgian federal election,and in March 2020 took his seat in the chamber when Koen Geens became a member of the Wilmès II Government. [7] As a result,he also resigned as chairman of Jong CD&V.
On 1 October 2020,Mahdi became Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration in the cabinet of Alexander De Croo. [8] He said in statements to local media that he intends to increase the deportations of asylum seekers who did not have the right to stay in Belgium. [9] After the outbreak of the 2021 Taliban offensive,a few days before the establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,he refused to impose a moratorium on Belgium deportation practices to Afghanistan,despite calls from the Afghan government,the European Union and Amnesty International to stop those extraditions on the ground of degrading humanitarian situation. [10]
In November 2021,four representatives of the hunger strikers of the Béguinage Church accused Mahdi of "unprecedented betrayal." The accusation came after the Belgian authorities rejected the requests for residence permits filed by hunger strikers. The strikers had halted their two-months long hunger strike in July 2021 after representatives of Mahdi promised them that their individual files will be accepted for regularization. Mahdi defended himself against the accusation by referring to his past objections to group amnesties for undocumented workers. [11]
In May 2022,following an early election due to a significant drop in the party's standing in the polls,he ran again for the presidency of the CD&V. He was then the only candidate. In June 2022,with 97%,he became president of the party. [12] [13]
In September 2023,he competed on Belgium Drag Queen TV show Make Up Your Mind (Belgium) Season 1,which he came first.
In the 2024 Belgian federal election,he was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives.
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 Federal Government of Belgium exercises executive power in the Kingdom of Belgium. It consists of ministers and secretary of state drawn from the political parties which form the governing coalition. The federal government is led by the prime minister of Belgium,and ministers lead ministries of the government. Ministers together form the Council of Ministers,which is the supreme executive organ of the government.
Alexander De Croo is a Belgian politician and businessman who is the prime minister of Belgium. He assumed office in October 2020 and is currently acting in a demissionary capacity.
Theo Francken is a Belgian politician who has been a member of the Chamber of Representatives since 2010. He is a member of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA),a conservative Flemish nationalist party.
Maggie Celine Louise De Block is a Belgian politician of the Open VLD who has been chairing her party's group in the Chamber of Representatives since 2020.
The Michel I Government was the Federal Government of Belgium formed following the 2014 Belgian government formation and sworn in on 11 October 2014. The administration was a centre-right coalition of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA),the Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V),the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats and the Reformist Movement (MR). The prime minister was Charles Michel. The government had an agenda of socio-economic reforms,especially through austerity measures,with its priorities being improving Belgium's economic competitiveness and reducing unemployment. It fell in December 2018 over the Global Compact for Migration.
The Council of Ministers is the supreme executive organ of the Federal Government of the Kingdom of Belgium. It is a cabinet composed of the Prime Minister,who leads it,and up to fourteen senior ministers. Federal secretaries of state are members of the government,but not part of the Council. The King of the Belgians historically presided over the Council,but this has not happened since 1957. The Council of Ministers formally became a permanent policy structure with the constitutional revision of 1970.
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.
Sophie Wilmès is a Belgian politician who served as the prime minister of Belgium from 2019 to 2020. She later served as minister of foreign affairs from 2020 to 2022. A member of the Reformist Movement,she is the first woman to hold either position.
The Michel II Government was the Federal Government of Belgium,led by Prime Minister Charles Michel from 18 December 2018 until 27 October 2019 when it was succeeded by the Wilmès I Government. It was a centre minority coalition cabinet of Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V),the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats and the Reformist Movement (MR). On 26 October 2019,it was announced that Sophie Wilmès would take over the role of Prime Minister from Michel on 1 November 2019,and form a new government.
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.
Joachim Coens is a Belgian politician and businessman who has served as the leader of Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams,a Christian democratic political party,since December 2019. Before politics,he had been managing director of the holding company for the Port de Bruges-Zeebruges.
Vincent Van Peteghem is a Belgian economist and politician of CD&V who has been serving as Minister of Finance in the government of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo since 1 October 2020. He was a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium from 2014 until 2020.
The De Croo Government is the incumbent Federal Government of Belgium,led by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo since 1 October 2020. It has acted in a caretaker capacity since the resignation of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on 10 June 2024 following the 2024 Belgian federal election.
The 2021 hunger strike of undocumented migrants in Belgium was a two-month-long hunger strike held by several hundred undocumented migrants in Belgium in protest of the policies of the Belgian government,led by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi,concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and residency permits.
Maria Vindevoghel is a Belgian shop steward in the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions and politician of the Workers' Party of Belgium.
Egbert R. Lachaert is a Belgian lawyer,politician and was party chairman of the Open VLD.
Nicole de Moor is a Belgian politician,a member of CD&V. On 28 June 2022,she became Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration in the government of Alexander De Croo.
Tom Ongena is a Belgian politician for the Open Vld born in Germany and has served as chairman of the party since 2023.