After a racism scandal forced Conner Rousseau to step down on Friday as leader of the Flemish socialist party Vooruit, the once-youngest-ever political leader leaves frontline politics after having left his mark on the party – for better or worse.
Following a series of scandals surrounding the young Flemish politician, Vooruit has now lost the party leader with only seven months until the national elections in June 2024.
A controversial figure from the get-go (he wore sneakers to a meeting about the formation of the Federal Government with the king just two months after he became party leader), there is no denying his approach put Vooruit back on the map: the party went from 10.8% to 16.8% in the polls under his leadership.
At 26 years old, he was elected leader of the Flemish Socialist Party, then called sp.a, in 2019. A year later, he decided to turn the party into a "movement" and renamed it Vooruit (which means "Forwards" in Dutch) – a choice that seemingly paid off for the party as well as Rousseau, who became one of Flanders' most popular politicians.
Kingconnah
However, criticism was never far away for Rousseau. His large presence on social media, mainly Instagram (where his username 'Kingconnah' cried out for attention) was compounded by his participation in The Masked Singer, an entertainment programme in which he performed songs while wearing a bunny suit for seven weeks on Flemish primetime television.
More recently, Rousseau came under fire for more serious incidents and comments: a controversial coming-out video was followed by a number of complaints about alleged inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct, all of which have been dismissed by the courts.
In April last year, he said that he "did not feel like he was in Belgium" when driving through Molenbeek – a Brussels neighbourhood known for its ethnic diversity. Rather than apologise for what was widely perceived as a racist statement, Rousseau doubled down on his remarks following a visit to the municipality.
Then there was his suggestion to phase out child benefits in exchange for free childcare, and even take away the living wage for newcomers. His proposal stuck in the side of conventional socialist sentiment but time and again his "young and bold" image got Rousseau off the hook. Until now.
Rousseau in rabbit costume for The Masked Singer. Credit: Belga
In September, rumours of a racist slur at a bar in his hometown of Sint-Niklaas became the final straw for Rousseau's reputation. What the politician had first denied as "drunken nonsense" was finally revealed following protracted legal proceedings. It finally emerged last week that he had made a slew of racist comments about the Roma community, as well as sexist remarks.
Late on Friday night, he dramatically resigned as party leader during a press conference.
Bart De Wever, leader of the Flemish rightwing N-VA party, called Rousseau "one of those typical Icarus figures who is flying straight towards the sun," saying that "he has created a movie star-like status around himself, and he [was] politically successful with that. But the sustainability of such models is always the question."
Within Vooruit, the affair has split the party. Even when Rousseau's racist and sexist statements were revealed, some party members continued to defend their leader – going against the feelings of many of their voters.
Who is next?
On Saturday morning, Vooruit appointed Melissa Depraetere (31) as the party's new interim leader. Like Rousseau, she is a product of the new generation of Flemish socialists that had begun under John Crombez, who had wanted to revitalise the party and reverse its steep electoral decline.
In politics for a decade, Depraetere started as a staff member working for the party and in 2014 became a member of the council that runs social services in her home base, Harelbeke. She made her mark in national politics and notably exposed irregularities in a dossier on the replacement of F-16 fighter jets in Belgium.
In 2019, she was elected to parliament, and when Vooruit joined the current Federal Government, she became group leader in the Federal Chamber.
Vooruit's Melissa Depraetere pictured during Saturday's press conferece. Credit: Belga/Nicolas Maeterlinck
Depraetere grew up in the West Flemish town of Harelbeke, where she worked as a student in the local bakery and became very involved with the local youth movement. Her mother works as a cleaning lady, her father was a welder in a factory until last year. She was the first in the family to go to university.
While Depraetere's softer approach is markedly different from Rousseau's sometimes sharp and flamboyant style, the two are close friends and are on the same line in terms of content.
The party made it clear that they trust her to make difficult decisions when it is needed, De Morgen reports. For example, the fact that she called the far-right cordon sanitaire "the stupidest invention ever" a few years ago did not prevent her during the press conference on Saturday from ruling out any cooperation with the far-right Vlaams Belang after 2024.
