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Mohamed Ridouani (Leuven, 24 June 1979) is a Belgian politician for the sp.a. He has been mayor of Leuven since January 2019. Biography

His parents migrated from small mountain village Imazighen in the Rif Mountains in the province of Nador (Morocco) to Leuven in the early 70s, where he was born. He attended secondary school at the Royal Atheneum Redingenhof in Leuven, where he graduated in 1997 in Economics-Mathematics. [1] He then graduated as a licentiate in commercial sciences at KU Leuven. Later he also obtained a post-academic specialization in international relations. [2] Following this, he worked for four years as a business consultant at Deloitte, a company specialized in corporate strategy and processes. He was also the founder and chairman of the Leuven multicultural association Ahlan vzw. [3]

In 2007 Ridouani exchanged business for politics. At the request of Stijn Bex he presented himself as candidate on the cartel list sp.a-Spirit. He became a municipal councilor and ships for Spirit in Leuven. He became responsible for human resources, education, environment and diversity. On his initiative, the buddy project, which provides after-school guidance for socially vulnerable pupils by students in teacher training, started in Leuven. In addition, he is the driving force behind the climate plan, in which Leuven aims to become the first climate-neutral Flemish city by 2030. [4] As head of list [5] of the SLP during the Flemish elections of 7 June 2009 [6] he received 2298 preference votes in the constituency of Flemish Brabant. [7] Not enough to be elected. In addition, he was vice-chairman of the SLP until September 18, 2009, when he announced his transfer to the sp.a. [8] He describes himself as a politician on the right side of the sp.a. [9]

In 2011 he accumulated five mandates, including three remunerations. [10]

At the 2012 municipal elections, he was again elected in the Leuven city council with 2,325 preferential votes. In the new legislature he again became a ship, with responsibilities as human resources, education, economy, environment and real estate. In 2014, he was in third place on the Flemish Brabant list in the parliamentary elections, but he was not elected. In December 2015 he was presented as candidate successor to Louis Tobback as mayor in Leuven. [11] Also in December 2015, he was elected party leader by the Leuven sp.a department at the municipal elections of 2018, he was the only candidate. [12] Mayor

In those elections of 14 October 2018 he won 25.9 percent of the votes with his party, with a personal score of 10,059 preferential votes. That same evening he and his party formed a coalition with Groen and the CD & V and Ridouani was nominated as mayor. [13]

At the federal elections of 2019 he is at the back of the Flemish-Brabant sp.a-list.