Bart De Wever

Vocation

Family

Belgian politician. In 2004 he became head of the NVA Party, a Flemish political party that seeks to establish an independent state for the Flemish. He served in the Flemish Parliament from 2004 to 2007. The strongly conservative nationalist was heavily criticized in 2007 for denouncing the Mayor of Antwerp's apologies for any role that the region played in the deportation of its Jewish population during the Holocaust. De Wever then sought to mitigate his remarks by clarifying that he thought the apologies were "gratuitous" because they came too late. He played a prominent role in the 2007 Belgian government formation and led his party to victory in the 2010 Belgian federal elections. This made the N-VA the largest party in both Flanders and the whole of Belgium, although they did not end up in the government. He was a candidate for the post of mayor of Antwerp in the local elections of 14 October 2012 and his party reached 37.7% of the votes, making it the strongest party. He is likely to become mayor in December 2012. He is married since 12 January 2008 and has four children. He was seriously obese but appears (in October 2012) to have lost more than 50kg since the end of 2011. (Photo by Michiel Hendryckx; please click on image to view license info) Link to Wikipedia biography