New coalition still keeping name of port ships secret

Anyone with bets on who will be the next Antwerp port alderman will have to spend another weekend in suspense. At the presentation today of the draft administrative agreement of the ‘burgundian’ coalition (N-VA, Open Vld and s.pa), there was still no word on the filling of the mandates in the College of Aldermen. This morning, Gazet van Antwerpen tips off the N-VA expellees Koen Kennis (alderman for mobility in the outgoing college) and Annick De Ridder, who started her professional career in the port at Katoen Natie and made a name for herself as a Flemish MP with interventions on port-related issues such as the Major Act, the right to strike and the fate of steamship Themis. If De Ridder or Kennis claim this position, the unwritten rule stating that the party supplying the mayor does not also occupy the weighty mandate of port mayor will be broken.