Nelly Maes (born 25 February 1941) is a Belgian social liberal politician from the Flanders region. She began her professional career as a teacher. Her professional political career started in 1971 when, on behalf of Hugo Schiltz, she was stood candidate and was elected for the Volksunie into the Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives, where she seated until 1977, becoming an elected senator in the next year, 1978, until 1981. Upon being elected as vice-president of the party, she left parliamentary work, as the Volksunie went through rough seas internally, when separists and regionalists, leftists and conservatives, could't find a way to solve the problems concerning the whereabouts of the party which saw its political aims come true when the Belgian state deeply reformed itself from