| Elio Di Rupo | |
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President of
Belgian Socialist
Party
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| Incumbent | |
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Assumed office 1999 |
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| Born | July 18, 1951 Morlanwelz, Hainaut, Belgium |
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| Political party | Parti Socialiste |
| Occupation | politician |
Elio Di Rupo (born 18 July 1951 in Morlanwelz) is a Belgian social-democratic politician and the President of the Socialist Party.
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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 be 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. He started his professional career at the Université de Mons-Hainaut.
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 social-democratic parties, the Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste, PS), and is 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]
In 1996, he was wrongly accused of having had sex with minors by a young gay man, Olivier Trusgnach. These allegations nearly put an end to his political career.
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 community 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 re-elected. On July 11, 2007, Di Rupo was reelected president of the Socialist Party with 89.5% of the votes [4]
| 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 |
   | this article - Belgium: Federal elections will result in new right wing government |
| | Official blog of Elio Di Rupo - Le blog d’Elio |
| | Interview with Di Rupo - Michel Bouffioux - Elio Di Rupo (210396) |
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