When Sophie Wilmès took to Belgian television in early March to put the country on lockdown, it’s likely that many in the country had no idea she’d been their prime minister for months.

The pragmatic former budget minister had been sworn in in October. After an inconclusive election, Wilmès was put in charge of a caretaker government while the country’s political heavyweights tried to strike a political agreement. Nobody expected much from her, and she mostly stayed out of the limelight.

Then came the coronavirus.

As confirmed cases started to mount and the first deaths were reported, Belgium’s party leaders — still unable to come to a lasting agreement — tapped Wilmès to lead the country through the crisis. Ten parties, including the three in her government, backed a plan to give her emergency powers for six months.

That gives Wilmès until September to guide the country through what looks like its worst crisis since World War II, at which point she will have to face parliament for another confirmation vote.

"It’s in testing times that you show your full potential” — Alexander De Croo, Belgium's deputy prime minister

How she handles the coming months will determine the rest of her political career — and shape the lives of millions of her fellow Belgians.

“It’s all hands on deck in very difficult circumstances,” said Alexander De Croo, Wilmès’ deputy prime minister. “But it’s in testing times that you show your full potential.”

Bitter distinction

Growing up in the Ixelles neighborhood of Brussels, Wilmès did not plan to go into politics. Her father served as chief of staff to Jean Gol, a Belgian French-speaking liberal politician who was in and out of government before becoming a member of the European Parliament.

The family often talked politics at home, but the young Wilmès found the subject boring. “At home, my parents talked about politics all the time. They were passionate about their work. As a teenager, I was convinced I would never go into politics,” she told the newspaper La Libre last year.

The disaffection didn’t last. After a stint at the European Commission as a financial officer, Wilmès ran for town councillor in Uccle in 2000 and won. From there she climbed the ranks of local politics until 2014, when she was elected into the national parliament, where she earned a reputation for a rigorous work ethic and an ability to crunch numbers. The following year, then Prime Minister Charles Michel asked her to become his budget minister.

“Within a very short amount of time, she managed to gain political traction and acquired the stature of a stateswoman, able to stand above the fray of party politics,” said Nicolas Baygert, a professor of communications at IHECS and the ULB in Brussels and Sciences Po in Paris.

Elevated into the top job after Michel left to become president of the European Council in October, Wilmès became Belgium’s first female prime minister. It’s a bitter distinction for many in the country, as she was intended to be just a placeholder while others tried to form a more permanent government.

Wilmès is close to Michel, and political rivals have depicted her elevation as the former prime minister’s way of preventing rivals inside his party from taking control of the government he had so recently headed. She was also one of the few French-speaking ministers left in the Belgian government with reasonably fluent Dutch, a critical skill given the country’s linguistic divide.

“She basically became prime minister by accident,” said Dave Sinardet, a professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels. “Because of one coincidence after another, she suddenly finds herself leading the country at a historical moment. Others who have spent their entire careers trying to climb the ladder are now watching with envy at how she’s becoming the face of the government’s response to this crisis.”

Wilmès declined a request for an interview.

Time will tell

Not everyone is impressed by Wilmès’ political trajectory. Eric Van Rompuy, a former MP who chaired the national parliament’s budget committee when Wilmès was budget minister, said she was mostly a “secretary” and had barely any impact on budgetary decisions.

“Budget ministers have to make sure the budget doesn’t derail,” Van Rompuy said. “Wilmès never had the power to do that. It was Michel and Finance Minister Johan Van Overtveldt who called the shots.”

Belgium is famously divided along linguistic lines, and forming governments has become even harder as the French-speaking Walloon region in the south has shifted to the left while Flanders in the north has seen a rise in nationalism.

To the right-wing New Flemish Alliance party (N-VA), which won most votes in last year’s election, Wilmès’ appointment demonstrates the inability of the two parts of the country to work together, even under the threat of the coronavirus.

“We wanted to form a government of national unity that included the biggest parties of the north and the south of this country,” said Peter De Roover, the N-VA’s leader in parliament. “But there was a brutal rejection of this by the French-speaking parties. This government is the child of a manifest rejection of the N-VA.”

“At this point, we’re doing everything we can to help the current government tackle the coronavirus,” said De Roover. “But at a certain point the time will come to evaluate all of this.”

“This government is already taking actions that we are questioning, such as signing a letter with Southern European countries to ask for so-called corona bonds,” he added. “Time will tell whether Wilmès will turn out to be a good crisis manager.”

Face of the crisis

With a limited runway to prove her leadership, Wilmès has moved quickly to put in place mitigation measures. She closed Belgium's schools, bars and restaurants on March 12. A scientific task force advises the government on policy and briefs the press with daily updates of how many people are infected with the virus.

When addressing the nation during the crisis, Wilmès has not opted for the martial rhetoric of her French counterpart President Emmanuel Macron, preferring a more soothing tone.

Her room to maneuver is limited. Belgium is the eurozone’s fourth most indebted country, after Portugal, Italy and Greece. And while her government’s emergency measures allow her to act independently of parliament when it comes to combating the coronavirus, her powers are restricted when it comes to other policy areas.

So far, her approach seems to be working. A television interview broadcast from a supermarket depot stacked high with goods has helped calm fears of shortages and limited panic buying. And as reports of shortages of medical supplies have emerged, it’s been Health Minister Maggie De Block, not Wilmès, who has taken the blows.

“Belgium is a complex country,” said Herman Goossens, director of the clinical pathology department of the University Hospital in Antwerp and coordinator of the Rapid European COVID-19 Emergency Research Response. “The state structure doesn’t help to tackle such a crisis. Despite that, Belgium has swiftly taken the necessary measures, going further than neighboring countries.

“Whereas the prime minister was more in the background at first, she has now grown in her role,” said Goossens. “She knows what she’s talking about. It’s also a great advantage that she speaks both languages.”

At key moments of the crisis, the hashtag #keepsophie has rippled across social media.

“Especially in the southern part of Belgium, her star is rising quickly,” said Sinardet. “She’s not a polarizing figure and she succeeds in establishing a compromise between the different Belgian governments on how tackle the crisis.”

Much will depend on her handling of the epidemic as the death toll inevitably mounts and the economic impact of the lockdown begins to bite. As the face of the government’s handling of the crisis, it is Wilmès who will ultimately be held responsible.

“She has a very structured method of working, leaving no ambiguity,” said De Croo, her deputy prime minister. “That comes in handy in times like these.”

“She will convince everyone in the coming months,” he added.