The populist pro-White Belgian-based Vlaams Belang Party has polled strongly in local elections on Sunday,, taking nearly 40% of the vote in many areas, but failing in its bid to unseat the democratic ‘rainbow alliance’ of parties in Antwerp (which range from Communists to Conservatives whose only purpose is to keep the VB from power).

Interestingly – and possibly a good lesson foe the Vlaams Belang and other pro-White populist parties playing the democratic game - the much vaunted VB ‘pact’ with Antwerp's 20,000 strong Orthodox Jewish community, built on an anti-Islam platform, failed to translate into a significant support base which might well have pushed the VB into first place. Before polls opened, the Vlaams Belang was predicting that it would win nearly 40% of all votes cast in Antwerp based on Jewish support.

Orthodox Jewish residents packing the streets of Antwerp's diamond-trading quarter scorned the idea that Vlaams Belang would win up to a third of their community's votes, as party mayor candidate Filip Dewinter said last week.

Wearing Orthodox black suits and Homburg hats, the men were carrying palm fronds in honor of the feast of Sukkot, celebrated this weekend. That festival meant it was forbidden for Jews to cast their votes, Jeremy Sulzbacher said, unless they had organized a proxy vote. "Vlaams Belang doesn't convince Jewish people," he said.

"Once they've finished with the Muslims and the North Africans, who will they start on next? They'll start on us, the Jews."

Nonetheless, the VB has seen a surge of support in the Dutch-speaking north, where its share of the vote has increased in every municipality. In Schoten, on the outskirts of Antwerp, a former Miss Flanders, Marie-Rose Morel (illustration) led the party to a score of 34.7 per cent, six percentage points more than in 2000.

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