Elio Di Rupo
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| Elio Di Rupo | |
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Minister-President of the Walloon Region
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| In office 1999 – 2000 |
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| Succeeded by | Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe |
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| Born | July 18, 1951 .svg/22px-Flag_of_Belgium_(civil).svg.png){kind=small} Morlanwelz (Hainaut) |
| Political party | Parti Socialiste |
| Occupation | politician |
Elio Di Rupo (born 18 July 1951 in Morlanwelz) is a Belgian socialist politician and the President of the Socialist Party.
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[edit] Biography
Elio Di Rupo is the son of Italian immigrants. His father died when he was one year old, and his mother had to take care of the seven children. For financial reasons, three of the children had to placed in an orphanage, located at a kilometre's distance of where the family lived in Morlanwelz.
He graduated as a chemist at the Université de Mons-Hainaut (UMH) and a PhD from the Same University and the University of Leeds. He started his professional career at the Université de Mons-Hainaut and The Houldsworth School of Applied Sciences of the University of Leeds.
[edit] Political career
He started his political career as an attache at the cabinet of Jean-Maurice Dehousse in 1980-1981.
Elio Di Rupo is the leader of one of the two Belgian socialist parties, the French-speaking Parti Socialiste (PS), and one of Belgium's most powerful politicians.
Elio Di Rupo is a flamboyant left-winger, and is widely considered to have played a major part in the resurgence of the PS. He is widely known to always wear red bow ties.
His political career started in 1982. He is a deputy (MP) for the Arrondissement of Mons in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. He once described François Mitterrand as being "a character from a novel". [1]
He became burgomaster of Mons, capital of the province of Hainaut, in 2000.
In October 2005, he became Minister-President of the Walloon Region after Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe resigned amid a corruption scandal, involving several members of Di Rupo's party. Di Rupo continued as party leader though, and has had to deal with the PS's ICDI scandal that emerged in May 2006.
In 2006 and 2007, Di Rupo and its party appeared unsuccessful in trying to clean out corruption. This was probably instrumental in the party losing its first place amongst French-speaking parties 2007 federal election [2]. Di Rupo then decided to take a firmer stance against corruption in Charleroi: he virtually took control of the city's socialist party and ordered the socialist mayor and aldermens to resign [3].
After former PS president Guy Spitaels urged him to choose between the presidency of the party and of the Walloon Region, Di Rupo decided to organize internal elections for party president in July 2007 rather than in October and announced that he would resign from his mandate as Minister-President if reelected. On July 11, 2007, Di Rupo was reelected president of the Socialist Party with 89.5% of the votes [4]
[edit] External links
- (French) Official blog of Elio Di Rupo
[edit] Notes
- ^ Elio, tout simplement, article from La Libre Belgique, April 22, 2003
- ^ The party loses 20% of its seats at the Chamber of Representatives, see also this article that analysis the impact on socialists
- ^ See article from VRT News and La Libre Belgique
- ^ See this press release and La Libre Belgique
[edit] References
- (French) Elio Di Rupo on the website of the Walloon government
- (French) Elio Di Rupo
- (Dutch) Elio Di Rupo
- (French) Interview with Di Rupo
| Preceded by Robert Collignon |
Minister-President of the Walloon Region 1999–2000 |
Succeeded by Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe |
| Preceded by Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe |
Minister-President of the Walloon Region 2005–2007 |
Succeeded by Rudy Demotte |
