From his period in the humanities he was involved in the youth section of the People's Union (Volksunie), a Flemish nationalist party, of which he was the chairman from 1974 to 1976.

Within the VLD, he was part of the conservative wing, and he was open to the idea of working with the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) and its precursor Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc), something the VLD's leadership did not support.

In 2004, Coveliers was co-founder of the Antwerp section of the conservative-libertarian organization Nova Civitas and became inspired and influenced by Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn.

At that time he also feuded openly with VLD party chairman Karel De Gucht.

This party is willing to work together with the Vlaams Belang (VB) and formed a cartel with it for the Antwerp city elections in October 2006.