Nadia Sminate

Nadia Sminate
Member of the Chamber of Representatives
Incumbent
Assumed office
6 July 2010
Personal details
Born (1981-12-29) 29 December 1981 (age 42)
Bonheiden, Antwerp
NationalityMoroccan Belgian
Political partyN-VA
ResidenceLonderzeel
Websitehttp://www.n-va.be/cv/nadia-sminate

Nadia Sminate (born 29 December 1981 in Bonheiden) is a Belgian politician and is affiliated to the N-VA. She was elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2010.[1]

Early life

She was born to a Belgian[2] (Flemish)[3] mother and a Moroccan father.[2] Sminate studied romance philology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, graduating in 2003. Afterwards she was an adult education teacher; first in Ganshoren and then in Meise-Jette.[4] She was then a lingerie model for a while and was elected Miss Handelsgids.[5]

Political career

She became a member of the Flemish nationalist N-VA party, which she served in the Chamber of Representatives from 2007 to 2009. Thereafter she was promoted to staff member of Philippe Muyters, then Flemish Minister of Finance, Budget and Spatial Planning. [6]

In the Belgian federal elections of 2010, she was elected from second place on the electoral list for the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde as a Member of Parliament with 8,884 preferential votes.[7]

In the municipal elections of 2012 she was the list leader for her party in Londerzeel.[8] The party came up independently for the first time and obtained 21.6% of the vote. This made the party the third largest in the municipality after CD&V (31.5%) and the local LWD party (26.3%). On behalf of her party, she concluded an administrative agreement with CD&V and sp.a-Groen.[9] At the beginning of 2014 she became Alderman of Finance, Budget and Personnel.

She was elected Flemish Member of Parliament in the 2014 Flemish elections. From the end of June 2014, she was part of the Bureau (daily board) of the Flemish Parliament as secretary. In January 2016, as agreed in the administrative agreement, she succeeded Jozef De Borger (CD&V) as Londerzeel's mayor.[10][11] She was thus the first Flemish mayor with Moroccan roots.[12] In the 2018 elections, Sminate's party won a big victory with 35.4%, but the N-VA ended up in the opposition this time.[13]

She has also served as a state senator in the Senate since January 2019.[14] In the Flemish elections of 26 May 2019, she was re-elected as a Flemish Member of Parliament. Since mid-June 2019, she has been third vice-president of this assembly.

Notes

  1. ^ "Chamber of Representatives: cv Nadia Sminate" (in Dutch). Dekamer.be. 1981-12-29. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  2. ^ a b "Nadia Sminate eerste burgemeester van Marokkaanse afkomst". De Standaard. Archived from the original on 12 March 2023.
  3. ^ ""Ik voel mij een echte Vlaamse"". Het Laatste Nieuws.
  4. ^ Het Nieuwsblad, 'Een sprong in het diepe', 15 June 2010.
  5. ^ Het Laatste Nieuws, 'Pas verkozen Nadia Sminate (N-VA) vroeger lingeriemodel', 15 June 2010.
  6. ^ De Standaard, 'Een minister is maar zo sterk als zijn cabinetards', 21 January 2012.
  7. ^ IBZ, 'Uitslagen Federale verkiezingen 2010'.
  8. ^ Gazet van Antwerpen, 'Nadia Sminate trekt N-VA-lijst', 7 March 2012.
  9. ^ De Standaard, 'CD&V, N-VA en SP.A-Groen vormen meerderheid in Londerzeel', 20 October 2012.
  10. ^ Brussel Nieuws, 'Londerzeel krijgt eerste burgemeester van Marokkaanse komaf', 22 October 2012.
  11. ^ Het Nieuwsblad, 'Eerst De Borger, dan Sminate', 22 October 2012.
  12. ^ "Sminate wordt eerste Vlaamse burgemeester met Marokkaanse roots". deredactie.be.
  13. ^ Het Laatste Nieuws, 'Nadia Sminate is sjerp kwijt in Londerzeel', 16 October 2018.
  14. ^ Metrotime.be, 'Zes nieuwe gezichten en drie nieuwe fractievoorzitters in de Senaat', 11 January 2019.