Daniel Ducarme was a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 and former Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region

Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region

The Minister-President of the Brussels Capital-Region is the person leading the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region. The post is appointed for 5 years along with 4 ministers and 3 "state" secretaries...

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Background and political affiliation

Starting his political career in the Liberal Reformist Party

Liberal Reformist Party

The Parti Réformateur Libéral was a Belgian liberal party active in Wallonia and Brussels. It grew out of the unitiarian PVV-PLP and has since become part of the Mouvement Réformateur.-PVV-PLP:* Omer Vanaudenhove 1961 - 1968...

 (PRL), Ducarme served as mayor of Thuin

Thuin

Thuin is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. The Thuin municipality includes the old communes of Leers-et-Fosteau, Biesme-sous-Thuin, Ragnies, Biercée, Gozée, Donstiennes, and Thuillies.-Origins:...

 in Wallonia from 1988 to 2000, becoming party president in 1999. In 2000 he moved to Schaarbeek

Schaarbeek

Schaerbeek or Schaarbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. The first mention of the name was Scarenbecca, recorded in a document from the Bishop of Cambrai in 1120...

 in the Brussels-Capital Region and stood for election to the Schaerbeeck council.

The PRL merged with its centre-right partners to create the Reformist Movement

Reformist Movement

The Reformist Movement is a French-speaking liberal political party in Belgium. The party was in coalition as part of the Leterme II Government, and was also part of the governing coalition in the Walloon Region and Brussels-Capital Region until the 2004 regional elections...

 (MR) in 2002, which Ducarme led as president.

Brussels Minister-President

In 2003 he replaced his MR colleague François-Xavier de Donnéa

François-Xavier de Donnéa

François Xavier Gustave Marie Joseph Corneille Hubert, Knight de Donnea de Hamoir is a Belgian politician and a former mayor of the City of Brussels and Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region....

 as Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region, provoking considerable resentment among parties representing the Flemish

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

-speaking community as he was essentially a monoglot Francophone

Francophone

The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....

, unlike his predecessors as Minister-President.

Resignation and succession

Ducarme resigned in 2004 following allegations of improprieties in his tax affairs by the newspaper Vers l'Avenir. He was succeeded as Minister-President by Jacques Simonet

Jacques Simonet

Jacques Simonet was a Belgian politician and a former Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region.He is the son of Henri Simonet, former Socialist Party minister and for many years mayor of Anderlecht. His mother Marie-Louise Angenet taught at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.He was born in...

 and as president of the MR by Didier Reynders

Didier Reynders

Didier J.L. Reynders is a Belgian politician and a member of the Mouvement Réformateur . He is Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Institutional Reforms in the Van Rompuy I Government, which took office on 30 December 2008.He was born in Liège as the youngest in a family of...

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Later career

In 2006, Ducarme proposed to return to politics, wishing to stand in Schaarbeek on the MR list in the October 2006 elections, but was ultimately prevented from doing so. In apparent compensation he was appointed by Reynders to represent the MR as a roving ambassador abroad. Ducarme died of cancer on 28 August 2010.

External links

• Biographical note at the Belgian Parliament website