Brussels, May 16 (Bloomberg) -- ``Belgium does not exist,'' says Frank Vanhecke. The president of the Vlaams Blok is sitting across from a poster of Apache leader Geronimo in the Flemish independence party's office overlooking Brussels, capital of what he argues is a non-existent nation.

His sentiment reflects the basic premise of the party. A poll by La Libre Belgique newspaper, based on a survey carried out between April 22 and May 3, shows the Vlaams Blok winning 18 percent of the Flemish vote in Sunday's national elections, up from 15.4 percent in 1999.

The Vlaams Blok considers the Dutch-speaking Flemish region to be a separate country with its own language, economic system, culture and political parties. Vanhecke, who says he's inspired by Geronimo, sees himself as a native who is fighting injustice and defending his land from incursions by interlopers.

The outsiders, in the party's view, include the French- speaking Walloons who live in the southern part of Belgium as well as non-European foreigners such as Turks and Moroccans. The Vlaams Blok's election platform is three-pronged: independence for Flanders, a stricter immigration policy and combating crime.

Those are traditional kinds of themes for rightwing parties in Europe. What's different is that the Vlaams Blok typifies the new breed of media-savvy far-right parties that are carving out a spot on Europe's political scene by becoming adept at presenting themselves as a reasonable alternative to mainstream parties.

`Very Acceptable'

``They are working hard to change their image and they are quickly becoming a very acceptable party,'' said Jaak Billiet, a professor of sociology at the Catholic University of Leuven. ``The campaign is much softer and they are really trying to make their image of family-friendly and friendly to women.''

Erna Totte, a restaurant owner in Mechelen, plans to vote for the Blok on Sunday because, she says, ``The Vlaams Blok has changed, and they are trying now to show what is done with all the promises and the money we are paying to keep the government in place.''

Totte, 40, also supports the party's positions on immigration and crime. The police, she said, are afraid of criminals and too many foreigners are unwilling to assimilate. ``People who come here from other countries should have to work or show that they want to integrate. We'd have to do that in their countries,'' Totte said.

Flanders, where 60 percent of the country's 10.3 million residents live, accounts for 76 percent of Belgian exports and two- thirds of the country's 260 billion-euro ($298 billion) economy. The unemployment rate in Wallonia was almost 17 percent in April, more than double Flanders' 7.4 percent jobless rate.

Haider, Le Pen

Far-right parties elsewhere in Europe have also gained a footing in the electoral process, with varying results.

Austria's Freedom Party captured 27 percent of the vote in the 1999 national election on an anti-immigrant platform spiced with populist themes such as a flat personal-income tax and reform of the family-allowance system. Then-party leader Joerg Haider said at the time it was the FPO's greater credibility compared with rival parties, rather than its stance on immigration, that drew voters.

The FPO later fell from grace, scoring 10.4 percent of the vote in November because of internal feuding and Haider's meetings last year with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Jean-Marie Le Pen of the rightist National Front made it to the second round of France's presidential elections last year, forcing socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the race, after winning 17 percent of the vote on a law-and-order, anti- immigrant platform. Le Pen's party won 18 percent of the vote in the runoff against President Jacques Chirac's conservative group.

Dutch voters last May gave the party of slain anti- immigration politician Pim Fortuyn 26 of 150 seats in the country's parliament. And Italy's coalition government includes Umberto Bossi's anti-immigrant Northern League party.

Antwerp

The Vlaams Blok has been attracting an increasing number of votes since the party was founded in 1977. It won 1.8 percent of the vote in Flanders the following year and has, except for 1981, gained in every subsequent election.

The turning point came in 1991, when the Blok grabbed 10.4 percent of votes and multiplied its representation in the Flemish Parliament six times.

Vanhecke predicts the party will win 18 percent of the vote in Flanders on Sunday, keeping its position as the third-biggest of the five main Flemish parties and drawing even more support in Antwerp, Belgium's second-largest city where it got 33 percent in the last municipal elections and is the dominant party. The other parties grouped together to form a coalition to keep the Vlaams Blok out of office.

``I really think in Flanders that rightwing policies and rightwing politics is becoming sexy,'' said Vanhecke, 43, who also is a member of the European Parliament. ``All parties in Flanders are taking more rightwing political views because the electorate has very largely rightwing ideas about issues such as security, fighting criminality and immigration.''

Security

A study by the Free University of Brussels shows the Flemish feel more insecure today than 10 years ago, mistrust Belgian political institutions and don't believe the police can protect them against criminals. They may be more likely as a result to vote for the far right, said Wendy Smits, a university sociologist who helped conduct the study.

``There is a strong relationship between feelings of insecurity and feelings of ethnocentrism,'' she said. ``The people who feel insecure and who have negative attitudes against immigrants have more chance to vote for the Vlaams Blok.''

The rightwing gain has come at the expense of the Socialists and Christian Democrats, who lost ground in the last national election. Moreover, support for Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's liberal party VLD has dropped in Flanders to below the level of the June 1999 election that brought him to power, according to a poll published by Le Soir newspaper on April 28.

The separatist drive, illustrated by recent decisions to split the railway, social security and justice systems into Walloon and Flemish parts, prompted several thousand people to protest against it in Brussels earlier this month. Days later, Walloon socialist-party leader Elio Di Rupo wrote an open letter to Flemish voters vowing to fight against separatism.

Last Updated: May 16, 2003 05:16 EDT