People's Party (Belgium)

People's Party
Personenpartij / Parti populaire
Leader Mischaël Modrikamen
Founded 26 November 2009
Headquarters Avenue Molière 144
1050 Brussels
Ideology Conservative liberalism
Federalism
International affiliation None
European affiliation None
Cartel None
Official colours Purple and orange
Website
www.partipopulaire.be
Politics of Belgium
Political parties
Elections

The People's Party (French: Parti populaire, Dutch: Personenpartij), abbreviated to PP, is a conservative liberal political party in Belgium. Primarily a French-speaking party, it considers itself to be to the right of the Mouvement Réformateur, Belgium's main centre-right French-speaking party.

The PP was founded on 26 November 2009 by Rudy Aernoudt and Mischaël Modrikamen, inspired in part by the examples of the People's Party in Spain and the Union for a Popular Movement in France.[1] The PP considers itself to be economically liberal in the European sense of the term. The party's manifesto emphasizes efficiency and disinterestedness in governance, plain speaking, and individual autonomy.[2] The PP aims to reform the justice system and to strengthen the Belgian federal government relative to the regions and communities.

In its first electoral test, the 2010 Belgian general election, the PP won 84,005 votes (1.29% of the national total) and returned Laurent Louis as its first Member of Parliament for Walloon Brabant. The PP list for the Senate, headed by Rudy Aernoudt, took 98,858 votes (1.53% nationally) but failed to return a Senator.

Aernoudt and Modrikamen had a public falling-out in August 2010. Laurent Louis had publicly supported the policy of Nicolas Sarkozy in deporting Roma people from France. These comments provoked the indignation of both Aernoudt and the leaders of the PP's youth wing,[3] but Modrikamen did not join in their call for Louis to apologize, and Aernoudt was expelled from the party. Aernoudt disputed the legality of his expulsion, and also criticized Modrikamen's call for a "Plan B" (an independent Wallonia-Brussels) as a betrayal of the party's federalist identity.[4] Aernoudt also publicly accused Modrikamen of financial misdeeds.[5] The rupture leaves the future of the party uncertain.

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