Christoph D'Haese

D'Haese was born in 1967 in Aalst. He studied for a degree in law at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU-Leuven) and University of Strasbourg. He worked as a lawyer specializing in criminal law and taught law at KU-Leuven. He also served on the Bar of Dendermonde until 2013.[2][1] In 2006, he was elected to the municipal council of Aalst for the Open VLD party and became chairman of the local council. In 2011, he left the Open-VLD and joined the New Flemish Alliance.[2] In 2014, he was elected to the Member of the Chamber of Representatives for the East Flanders constituency.[3]

D'Haese has also served as the mayor of Aalst since 2013. In 2019, D'Haese became involved in a dispute with UNESCO after UNESCO threatened to remove the Aalst Carnival from its world list of cultural heritage due to what was seen as anti-Semitic imagery on a float at the carnival. D'Haese argued that the floats featured at the carnival were based on satire rather than racism, however the float was condemned by fellow N-VA politician André Gantman who is Jewish.[4] Unia, the Belgian independent arbitrator for matters concerning discrimination, found that no laws had been broken.[5] The incident led to widespread condemnation from multiple organizations, including the European Commission.[6]