Meyrem Almaci
Member of the Flemish Parliament
Assumed office
26 May 2019
Party President of Groen
Assumed office
15 November 2014
Preceded byWouter Van Besien
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 (1976-02-25) 25 February 1976
Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
NationalityBelgian/Turkish
Political partyGroen
ResidenceBorgerhout (Antwerp)
OccupationPolitician
WebsiteOfficial 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.

Biography

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.

Political career

Start in politics

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.

Parliamentary career

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]

Specializations

In addition to the annual budget control, Almaci mainly specialized in financial files and the government budget. She mainly drew attention during the banking crisis of 2008 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:

  • permanent member of the Subcommittee "Court of Auditors" of the Committee on Finance and the Budget;
  • permanent member of the special committee in charge of investigating the financial and banking crisis;
  • deputy of the special committee charged with investigating the circumstances which led to the dismantling of Dexia SA;
  • deputy in the Committee on Finance and Budget;
  • deputy in the Advisory Committee on Social Emancipation;
  • deputy in the Committee on Business, Science Policy, Education, National Scientific and Cultural Institutions, the Self-Employed and Agriculture;
  • deputy in the Commission in charge of the Problems of Commercial and Economic Law;
  • deputy in the Control Commission on Election Expenditure and Accounting of Political Parties;
  • deputy in the Advisory Committee on Scientific and Technological Questions.

Municipal politics Antwerp

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.

Party chairwoman

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.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci (Groen!), kandidaat-burgemeester van Antwerpen". HUMO (in Dutch). 12 September 2011.
  2. ↑ "Ik was een pain in the ass". De Morgen (in Dutch). September 13, 2011. p. 11.
  3. ↑ "Election Results 2010".
  4. ↑ "Belgian Election Results 2014 - Preferential Votes".
  5. ↑ "Leden zetten licht op groen voor lijsttrekkerschap Meyrem Almaci en Kristof Calvo". Het Laatste Nieuws. 26 January 2019.
  6. ↑ "Flemish Election Results 2019 - Preferential Votes".
  7. ↑ "Startpagina | Lokale verkiezingen 2012". vlaanderenkiest.be. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci wordt fractieleider Groen in Antwerpse gemeenteraad". Het Nieuwsblad (in Dutch). 18 December 2012.
  9. ↑ "Almaci geeft Antwerpse fakkel door aan Van Besien". De Standaard (in Dutch). 11 February 2015.
  10. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci duwt Antwerpse lijst Groen". De Morgen. 11 March 2018.
  11. ↑ "Lokale verkiezingen 2018". vlaanderenkiest.be. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
  12. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci kandidaat voor voorzitterschap Groen". VRT NWS. 21 September 2014.
  13. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci nieuwe voorzitter Groen". De Standaard (in Dutch). 15 November 2014.
  14. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci wil zichzelf opvolgen als voorzitster van Groen: "Niet iedereen zal vergoeding krijgen voor salariswagen"". VRT NWS. 6 September 2019.
  15. ↑ "Almaci verslaat Rzoska en volgt zichzelf op als voorzitster van Groen". Het Laatste Nieuws (in Dutch). 19 October 2019.
  16. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci stopt als voorzitter van Groen: "Het is nu aan andere mensen, dat zal Groen deugd doen"". VRT NWS. 23 March 2022.
  17. ↑ "Meyrem Almaci stopt na bijna 8 jaar als voorzitster van Groen: "Tijdens coronacrisis aantal zaken op een rijtje gezet"". Het Laatste Nieuws. 23 March 2022.

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