the last few days Dedecker has showed himself to be a "inveterate trouble maker who keeps on creating damaging battles in his own party." Dedecker responded that "first they use me to attract votes in the local elections, only to put me on the street once the votes have been counted." Bart Tommelein later on accused Dedecker of being "the largest Calimero of Flemish politics." It was not unlikely that Dedecker would step over to VLOTT, a party being led by Hugo Coveliers. Coveliers was also a VLD member, but was ejected when he clashed with then party head Karel De Gucht. He openly invited Dedecker to start a VLOTT division in West Flanders. In an opinion article for De Standaard Coveliers wrote: "...I predicted I would not be the last one. There were still some independent minds running around that had to be tamed...Jean-Marie Dedecker goes out the same way: the party leader of the SP.A decides that the VLD has to bring a sacrifice, which the VLD executive eagerly fulfills.... They thereby relinquish themselves of a tough contender. These corruptible politicians would simply not allow any criticism.... There is no one left to oppose them now Dedecker is liquidated.... With his liquidation, the VLD merges left, soon to turn left, to the left side of society. Far away from the original liberal voters and principles." Coveliers claims he was ejected from the VLD on command of (then) SP.A leader Steve Stevaert. Some believe the same thing happened to Dedecker, on command of Socialist Party leader Johan Vande Lanotte. N-VA entry and exit After being expelled from the VLD Dedecker looked into starting a new liberal party, which might have seen the involvement of Hugo Coveliers of VLOTT, and law professor Boudewijn Bouckaert. He made it clear that he would not join the Vlaams Belang, the largest right wing party of Flanders. In November 2006, Dedecker founded the right-liberal thinkthank Cassandra. On 30 November 2006 it was announced that Dedecker joined the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) on behalf of the N-VA party board, because it proved difficult in Belgium to meet the electoral threshold of 5% with a new party. The Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V), with whom the N-VA had an electoral cartel agreement, stated they didn't want to be in league with Dedecker and broke off the association. On 9 December 2006, the N-VA party congress