http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061008...l_061008213820
ANTWERP, Belgium (AFP) - Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang polled strongly in Belgian local elections but failed in its main aim to seize control of the northern port city of Antwerp.
Final results gave the party, whose name translates as "Flemish Interest", 33.5 percent, just a half percentage point improvement over its score in the last municipal elections in 2000.
But the big winner in Belgium's second city -- home to some 460,000 people -- was the Flemish Socialist party, which became the biggest formation with 35.7 percent, a massive rise from 20 percent six years ago.
Antwerp Mayor Patrick Janssens also won a big personal victory over Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter, largely winning the "personal preference" vote, under which electors choose personalities as well as parties.
In contrast, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's Flemish Liberal Democrats slumped to distantly trail the Christian Democrats.
The far-right taking Antwerp would have amounted to a political earthquake, as the anti-immigrant bloc has been held at bay in the city by a wall of mainstream parties arrayed against it.
"We are the biggest winners in these elections," Vlaams Belang leader Frank Venhecke told Flemish television.
In Schoten, on the outskirts of Antwerp, a former Miss Flanders, Marie-Rose Moral led the party to a score of 34.7 percent, six percentage points more than in 2000.
But analyst and editorialist with the Flemish newspaper De Standaard, Guido Fonteyn, said that the result was not a good sign for the far-right party.
"Vlaams Belang has lost its last chance to take the city, I think it's the end," he said.
One factor that might have worked against the party was a racist killing in May, in which a skinhead gunned down an African woman and a white child in her care, sparking anti-extremism protest rallies.
Dewinter's rallying cry has been "Belgie Barst", or "Belgium explode", and a shift toward the right in Flanders or French-speaking Wallonia would have cemented the strong divisions between the kingdom's linguistic communities.
His party, and others in the Flemish right, accuse Francophones of being lax on crime and immigration, and the issue has risen to a head between the 6.5 million Flemish and 4.5 million French-speaking Belgians.
Other Flemish parties have threatened to pull out of federal government after the legislative elections in the second quarter of 2007 if the region is not granted wider powers.
Today the country's richest region, Flanders, remains troubled by painful memories of the 19th century when the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, who spoke French whether they were from Wallonia or Flanders, held sway.
In recent years, Flemish authorities have introduced measures aimed at limiting the use and influence of French. Wallonia, for example, is banned from funding French-speaking associations in Flanders.
The reinforcement of the extreme right in Flanders has only complicated the situation for the Belgian prime minister, whose party ceded ground to the Christian Democrats.
Verhofstadt, who leads a federal coalition government with the socialists, was accused during the election campaign of showing weakness toward his Francophone partners, particularly in security matters.
"The general tendency wasn't in our favour ... the government has had a difficult few months, but those who are up on the bridge are always the ones who bear the brunt of the wind," he said.
On seeing the results, Christian Democrat leader Yves Leterme said he was "very happy".
"It's a nice victory, an important result, but as they say: 'a week's a long time in politics'," he said.
