Belgian Politics & Elections: Federal, regional & EP elections on June 9, 2024

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Vooruit has the covid minister (federal minister of health) while chairman Conner Rousseau enjoys a popularity boost. Together with prime minister of Belgium Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) they are the three most popular politicians currently in Flanders. Jan Jambon (Flemish PM - N-VA) is however unpopular.

Strategies have been:

N-VA using their position in Flemish government to sabotage a lot of federal plans, like for example regarding energy (to shut down nuclear energy), because they believe that a federal government that isn't able to execute plans will increase flamingant sentiment.
CD&V is quite invisible lately.
PVDA came into the news because they don't want to fire nurses that don't take the vaxx, as they also reason that we have a shortage of nurses. They also are getting more popular due to the energy crisis, which rises prices and causes a high rise of inflation up to levels around the 2008-2009 economical crisis. A leftist message will work better because of that.
Open VLD is mostly visible due to having the PM. Otherwise invisible.
Vooruit has two persons that are popular, with the minister of healthcare being visible rn.
Greens probably are messing up on the issue of energy, and lack people of popularity. They might also be too establishment-like for most people.

Given that Vooruit has 3 seats in that poll for West-Flanders. I suspect due to having the minister of healthcare (covid), they do better among the elderly (taking votes away from CD&V), while Conner Rousseau is the youngest chairman active right now, and is active on trendy social media. However he seems to enjoy the ideal son-of-law effect.

Currently, we are basically in a lockdown again because our caretaker sector is collapsing. Numbers are however starting to decrease slowly again. The lockdown of several businesses causes some to gain additional stress, while there is currently little to no covid aid anymore.

Due to rising energy prices, our inflation has risen dramatically, and basically our entire life has become way more expensive. Wages will be adapted to inflation so wages will rise too, but overall the situation is worrying and not ideal.

Energy and gas is about 300% more expensive than a year ago. And overall a lot of shops had to increase their prices dramatically.

I would say covid(/healthcare) and energy (/environment) are the most relevant issues rn.

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https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/workers-party-of-belgium-ptb-raoul-hedebouw-interview

in Jacobin Magazine

“In 1869 Karl Marx called Belgium ‘the snug, well-hedged, little paradise of the landlord, the capitalist, and the priest.’ In 2021 Belgium offers the EU’s best hope for the ideology that bears his name.” So claimed the Economist last month, as the free-marketeer weekly identified the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB) as one of the most dynamic actors of the European left. A small Marxist-Leninist party whose membership numbered in the hundreds for the past forty years, the PTB experienced rapid growth in the last decade and became a real force in national politics, today polling third place (expected to win eighteen seats) and boasting twenty-four thousand members in a country with a population smaller than Ohio’s.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/18/last-of-the-commies

In the Economist Article: Last of the Commies

Yet some traditional Marxist parties are savvy. The Workers’ Party of Belgium (ptb), which began life as a home for Marxists who found Belgium’s Communist Party a bit soft, is now a mainstream party. Pressure from the ptb led to Belgium gumming up a free-trade deal between the eu and Canada, which sent diplomats on a crash course on the rules of Belgian federalism. Popular campaigns to slash taxes on energy put left-wing rivals in government in an awkward spot. In the Flemish parliament, it mischievously complained that a pay cut for mps had not actually gone through, two years after its approval. If polls are borne out, the far-left party is set to become the third-largest in the national parliament.

Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, provides the base of the ptb’s support. The region was the centre of continental Europe’s Industrial Revolution; now it is the apogee of deindustrialisation. Disaffected voters in depressed regions have been fodder for the radical right across Europe. Canny politics from the far left in Belgium has flipped that trend, dragging voters to the other side. In 1869 Karl Marx called Belgium the “the snug, well-hedged, little paradise of the landlord, the capitalist, and the priest”. In 2021 Belgium offers the eu’s best hope for the ideology that bears his name.

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I would say covid(/healthcare) and energy (/environment) are the most relevant issues rn.

ECOLO are certainly taking an almighty pummeling because of their stance on nuclear. Nollet litterally came out and said it didn't matter if CO2 emissions are higher because other countries in Europe would compensate!

Which also brings us to the whole idiocy of the thing, because the Netherlands just announced the building of 2 new nuclear power plants - there is your compensation for you. How is the security argument not irrelevant now that our neighbour will have 2 plants? If I were an ECOLO strategist I'd have just knocked the ball out of the park by saying the EU should have a clear position as a whole. Instead they are totally naively ceding to their NIMBYist rural activist base that think they are going to grow third nipples from living about 100km from a nuclear power plant.

Yes i know, but I didn't know Nollet literally said that... Well on some Belgian internet forums, i've been incredible critical on the Greens this month, calling what they do now the biggest gaffe in Belgian's 21st century politics, that we're better off without greens and that the last thing they are taken serious is climate change. And i have a reputation of staunchly defending environmental measures there.

All other political parties should now start agressive ad campaigns on social media, and you have an opportunity to get rid of the greens for once and for all. All parties should spend millions on it on every site, and repeating it over & over & over again.

A conservative party like N-VA is winning the environment debate over the greens. That alone is a humiliation and embarassment, yet most of the media sides with greens and frames N-VA as using their position in the Flemish government to sabotage federal efforts, but I just can't see what N-VA is doing wrong, and I side with them on this strongly.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/belgium/comments/rj2628/vlaams_belangboegbeeld_chris_janssens_ja_ik_ben/

Far-right (VB) icon Chris Janssens outs himself as gay. I've posted the reddit link.

I think I disagree with 95% of what Chris Janssens says, but I have to admit he has guts.

I'm really curious how his party members and general voters will react.

On the one hand now they have their white rabbit to show they aren't homophobes. On the other hand, they have some real homophobes running around over there.

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The absurd decision of the politicians to shut down cultural activities, despite even the public health officials saying those sectors weren't the principal problem, has landed the Vivaldi into hot water. All 3 Walloon parties inside it now have parliamentarians criticising their own government. The feckless leadership of these 3 parties havr decided to blame it on the Flemish parties, only to reject any attempts by Defi and cdH to bring the debate to the respective parliaments in charge of culture.

We could see a collapse of the federal and Walloon governments by the time the holiday period is over.

The Francophone minister of culture is also now basically saying she's not going to do anything about places that decide to stay open anyway. Shambles.

She is just following a trend : police basically said they wouldn't intervene in such cases, then mayors, now high level ministers. We are also the hardest hit with the gas crisis because despite 20 years préparation we still didn't deal with energy policy and nuclear phaseout. Civil disobedience is now pretty much widespread and I won't be surprised if we see even the most feckless, benign people such as the Belgians will be on the street by mid January (finally renewing with reputation Caesar once gave us). We saw the Dutch riot for the first time in years.I refuse to vote for anything near a traditional party in my lifetime, Greens included. I may even vote N-VA just to try and block the Brussels Regional Government from forming a coalition.

Anyway Merry Christmas!

Don’t vote for the fascist-lites responsible for how broken Belgian politics is. At least swallow and vote for PVDA as a party that would not have led to this disastrous Covid response.

Litterally the only thing stopping me from voting PVDA-PTB is their stance on so called Communist dictatorships like China where they deny a litteral ethnonationalist genocide is happening.

That's the opinion of some of them, i acknowledge that a genocide is going on. The only thing that bothers me is how much we highlight this genocide and ignore all others (like the genocide of Palestinians).

That being said, what matters is internal politics, not foreign politics. With time PVDA will develop beter foreign policy views, but what matters now is internal politics.

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The absurd decision of the politicians to shut down cultural activities, despite even the public health officials saying those sectors weren't the principal problem, has landed the Vivaldi into hot water. All 3 Walloon parties inside it now have parliamentarians criticising their own government. The feckless leadership of these 3 parties havr decided to blame it on the Flemish parties, only to reject any attempts by Defi and cdH to bring the debate to the respective parliaments in charge of culture.

We could see a collapse of the federal and Walloon governments by the time the holiday period is over.

The Francophone minister of culture is also now basically saying she's not going to do anything about places that decide to stay open anyway. Shambles.

She is just following a trend : police basically said they wouldn't intervene in such cases, then mayors, now high level ministers. We are also the hardest hit with the gas crisis because despite 20 years préparation we still didn't deal with energy policy and nuclear phaseout. Civil disobedience is now pretty much widespread and I won't be surprised if we see even the most feckless, benign people such as the Belgians will be on the street by mid January (finally renewing with reputation Caesar once gave us). We saw the Dutch riot for the first time in years.I refuse to vote for anything near a traditional party in my lifetime, Greens included. I may even vote N-VA just to try and block the Brussels Regional Government from forming a coalition.

Anyway Merry Christmas!

The irony is that you criticize the traditional parties for some reasons, and than indicate you will vote for N-VA which arguably do the things you criticize the traditional parties for, even more. That being said, they have better energy policies, even if it they only defend them to make sure Belgium doesn't work anymore. The Greens are horrendous on energy policies. They would build gas reactors that emit carbon dioxide in order to stop nuclear energy which doesn't emit carbon dioxide. LOGIC??? And we would be more dependant on gas from the east like from Russia, and we already have shortages.

The Greens are dangerous. And so are social democrats and christian democrats when it comes to covid policies. Everytime your hear our federal minister of health, he will say: "tighter", "tighter", "tighter".

Even VB has shown once again they're full of frauds, they're pussies when it comes to criticizing our government on covid. They're pussy's, only thing they try to do is balance on anti-vaxx and pro-vaxx, and criticing covid safe pass. it's the only ****ing thing they do.

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I mean if the position of the Belgian government parties, is that yes, they are commiting genocide, but we are not going to call it that, nor will we condemn it in any meaningful way aside from signing on to vague UN statements, nor will it have any consequences for our economic relationship and we are going to go ahead with ratifying an extradition treaty with them anyway, and we will let them build a massive logistics hub and their technology into our critical security infrastructure,

then the PVDA-PTB who actually do genuinely believe, for naivety or whatever reason, that there is no genocide so closer ties with China is fine; I am not sure if the former is actually the more defensible position.

(Although granted, I don't know much about how China policy is in PVDA or in Belgian politics generally, so do feel free to correct me.)

Do you really want a war with China - even if economic or whatever - for something we cannot change.

And are we going to start calling out all nations that do genocides but the west don't do anything about, because it doesn't fit ideologically to start a war / confrontation.

Most western nations support plenty of genocides, and stick their nose into a bag of salt, pretending it's not to be there, just to follow or get along with their allies.

Uyghur is exact the same thing as Palestinians. The perpetrator calls them terrorists or muslim terrorists and the enemy of the perpetrator calls the practices a genocide.

And obviously PVDA is likely the least American-aligned political party of Belgium. If you know the history of the nation, especially with regards to Grenada, Nicaragua, Vietnam and Chile, you would stop wondering why that is. And there's little to learn from America as from all western nations, their welfare system is the most sh**t, and since America only works for who is off well.

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(Although granted, I don't know much about how China policy is in PVDA or in Belgian politics generally, so do feel free to correct me.)

PVDA is likely the most China-aligned out of the major parties and i don't know the reason for that entirely. Not that they are bought by China or whatever, but it feels like they criticize them from all major parties the least, and have used them as a good example of how to deal with covid, which i have strongly criticized on a zoom conversation (as well as other regional members here) a year ago. I think they deviated from that now given there is more criticizing of the covid policies right now.

I would say PVDA is even more allied with China than with Russia, because i never hear them say anything about contemporary Russia.

Over only 12 years ago it's definitely an improvement because they used to still invite north korean diplomats & envoys here and host international communist gatherings, part of that is the legacy of Ludo Martens and it's maoist past (which explains perhaps why it has that China thing). Mertens pushed the party into a reformist and acceptable direction occupying the left-wing populist lane which didn't had a representative, while before they were seen as a bunch of extremists or people no-one took serious. And now they're one of the best polling left-wing populist parties in Europe, but one that does state openly to be still marxist leading to this article in the economist

https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/18/last-of-the-commies

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The absurd decision of the politicians to shut down cultural activities, despite even the public health officials saying those sectors weren't the principal problem, has landed the Vivaldi into hot water. All 3 Walloon parties inside it now have parliamentarians criticising their own government. The feckless leadership of these 3 parties havr decided to blame it on the Flemish parties, only to reject any attempts by Defi and cdH to bring the debate to the respective parliaments in charge of culture.

We could see a collapse of the federal and Walloon governments by the time the holiday period is over.

The Francophone minister of culture is also now basically saying she's not going to do anything about places that decide to stay open anyway. Shambles.

She is just following a trend : police basically said they wouldn't intervene in such cases, then mayors, now high level ministers. We are also the hardest hit with the gas crisis because despite 20 years préparation we still didn't deal with energy policy and nuclear phaseout. Civil disobedience is now pretty much widespread and I won't be surprised if we see even the most feckless, benign people such as the Belgians will be on the street by mid January (finally renewing with reputation Caesar once gave us). We saw the Dutch riot for the first time in years.I refuse to vote for anything near a traditional party in my lifetime, Greens included. I may even vote N-VA just to try and block the Brussels Regional Government from forming a coalition.

Anyway Merry Christmas!

Don’t vote for the fascist-lites responsible for how broken Belgian politics is. At least swallow and vote for PVDA as a party that would not have led to this disastrous Covid response.

Litterally the only thing stopping me from voting PVDA-PTB is their stance on so called Communist dictatorships like China where they deny a litteral ethnonationalist genocide is happening.

Just read about this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366

WHY DO I NEVER HEAR ABOUT SUCH GENOCIDES?

Despite a consensus at the highest levels of the U.S. and British governments that it would be necessary "to liquidate Sukarno", as related in a CIA memorandum from 1962,[25] and the existence of extensive contacts between anti-communist army officers and the U.S. military establishment – training of over 1,200 officers, "including senior military figures", and providing weapons and economic assistance[26][27] – the CIA denied active involvement in the killings. Declassified U.S. documents in 2017 revealed that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of the mass killings from the beginning and was supportive of the actions of the Indonesian Army.[8][28][29] U.S. complicity in the killings, which included providing extensive lists of PKI officials to Indonesian death squads,[35] has previously been established by historians and journalists.[28][23] A top-secret CIA report from 1968 stated that the massacres "rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders during the Second World War, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950s."

IM DONE WITH IT. DONE. DONE. DONE.

I always get criticized to fail to condemn genocides or antisemitism, but why are all "the morally good people" so SELECTIVE with their genocides they mention. [and i've nothing against jews, my biggest idol is a jew, i have something against the palestinian genocide]

So stop the notion that America were always the good guys. It's not like that, and if you truly believed that, you're swayed by tons and tons and tons of mass western propaganda, and if i were them, i would start praying for my soul if i were truly religious after all.

It's just

everyone here pretends to care about genocides and than put their head into a bag of salt if a genocide they are the perpretators of (or the ideology they support is responsible or closely aligned with them) is responsible. People are also selective when they start using the term "genocide", it's anti-terrorism" if it's the enemy, it's "a genocide" if it's our side.

And at the end people only condemn genocides if they dislike the regime responsible for it.

Our nation probably cares more about the Armenian genocide than the one Leopold II did himself. The only thing in defence of Belgium is that this is the legacy of our monarchy, and one crime Leopold II (and his alleis) commited, and like with every genocide not everyone in that country is responsible for even at the time, but it should properly looked into

and our entire monarchy needs to be cancelled for this, especially Leopold II who should be removed from all historical references and purged from the fact that he once existed. Silenced to death, as the person whose name we never mention: the voldemort of belgium.

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but I fail to see how I should support people like the PVDA-PTB who want only live in a binary world where the USA is the Baddie and everyone who opposes it is the Goodie (including genuine fascists like Putin or the Iranian Regime).

don't forget to continue to make things up.

if this is how journalists work, the right is right to call it fake news.

PVDA-PTB has not called Iran or Russia goodies. The USSR perhaps (some), but not modern Russia, certainly not.

The only thing they might oppose is the decision to antagonize those countries or blow up deals with them (like the Iran deal), but IMO that is not a situation of calling America baddie and Iran goodie, because if that is the case, Obama and the Democrats would also call America baddie and Iran goodie. They opposed the decision to repeal the Iran deal, and that was the right thing to do. I would worry more about parties that oppose the deal in our country.

I'm not sure why you're on such a quest to spread lies about PVDA-PTB.

They have no reason to call them goodies, they aren't even remotely left-wing.

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The Consitutional Council has ordered the re-opening of theatres and other cultural activities except for cinemas and bowling allies (the latter are taking the matter to a higher court instance.

Both politicians as well as the court have been a total failure during this pandemic, contributing to the global trend of eroding democratic values in name of a pandemic which today is no pandemic anymore. It is already a cold; given the high rates of infection and low rates of hospitalization.

However the consitutional council made the right decision in this case.

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"Genocide" most often means, in the present, "mass killing of people I want to highlight for political points and/or to make myself feel good/bad".
If the term is taken to mean any large killing of people for any reason it becomes utterly useless.
But that is what overuse of terminology results in anyway...
"Genocide" and "mass killing" are not necessarily synonyms. It is fine for there to be a legal definition that courts can use. But abusing that definition for sake of political football is clownish behavior that somehow seems to be in vogue these days.
And something isn't suddenly OK just because it isn't a genocide.

I don't use the terms ''genocide'' lightly, but there is ample evidence what is going on in Xinjiang is a genocide. There was a recent independent court decision that set out the argument that while no mass killings were going on, the sterilisation policies and systematic eradication of Uyghur culture constituted a genocide. Mass killings are indeed "worse" in terms of optics

I'm sure if i set up a poll in individual politics: which is worse: The Indonesian Mass Killings or the Uyghur Genocide, a majority of people would vote for the latter. Obviously both are bad, but this forum continues to baffle me lately.

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"Genocide" most often means, in the present, "mass killing of people I want to highlight for political points and/or to make myself feel good/bad".
If the term is taken to mean any large killing of people for any reason it becomes utterly useless.
But that is what overuse of terminology results in anyway...
"Genocide" and "mass killing" are not necessarily synonyms. It is fine for there to be a legal definition that courts can use. But abusing that definition for sake of political football is clownish behavior that somehow seems to be in vogue these days.
And something isn't suddenly OK just because it isn't a genocide.

I don't use the terms ''genocide'' lightly, but there is ample evidence what is going on in Xinjiang is a genocide. There was a recent independent court decision that set out the argument that while no mass killings were going on, the sterilisation policies and systematic eradication of Uyghur culture constituted a genocide. Mass killings are indeed "worse" in terms of optics

I'm sure if i set up a poll in individual politics: which is worse: The Indonesian Mass Killings or the Uyghur Genocide, a majority of people would vote for the latter. Obviously both are bad, but this forum continues to baffle me lately.

This post aged well
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=478030.0

Well at least some people are sane, but i want to wait for more votes because perhaps other people have to vote too.

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Is there election result data on a level lower than municipalities (ideally precincts) for the last Belgian local/federal elections?

When do our Belgian posters expect the Covid passport to be abolished? Apparently there will be changes on March 1st that will cause people who weren't vaccinated in the last 5 months (i.e. mostly young people who didn't receive a "booster") to lose their access to restaurants etc. Will this actually happen or will it be abolished beforehand?

I don't think so

For Flanders you can find data on all the elections here but it doesn't cover a level lower than municipilaties or in case of larger elections election districts.

https://www.vlaanderen.be/uitslagen-van-verkiezingen-in-belgie

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New poll



Flanders



Wallonia



Brussels



https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1507465616604626944

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1507459959470002185

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cdh have changed their name to Les Engagés.

Pathetic really.

I was struggling to find a translation, but wiki has helped me with "The Comitted". Dual meaning of course. One is that you have to be mightily committed politically to still be a part of this anachronistic, sinking ship of a party. And two, you are also likely to have to be committed to some form of mental health institution to think Maxime Prévot is the Belgian Macron.

Well i confused with the French web-series Les engagès and internationally that web-series is translated to WOKE.

Les Engagés is set in the milieu of LGBT activists in Lyon 2 and chronicles the lives of activists from Point G, a fictional gay and lesbian center located on the Pentes de la Croix-Rousse . Internationally, the series is distributed under the title Woke 3 .

I thought "the commited" was the right translation but "the engaged" is a possibility too. It is somewhat confusing. Either way, it's a dying political party that has a hard time continuing to stay relevant, which is usually when political parties opt for name changes.

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https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2022/04/26/_when-i-drive-through-molenbeek-i-dont-feel-im-in-belgium/

They want the Danish coalition or be like the Danish socdems.

I'm going to tell you.

He's a fake socialist. I vote for real socialists that respect people of different colours and don't resort to far-right populism while calling far-left politics populism

If that is extremist to you, call me an extremist

But i don't vote for faux socialists.

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New poll for Flanders.

•Right after this poll in which CD&V reaches a record low, the party leader Joachim Coens has resigned

•Bad for Open VLD, it thought claiming the premiership would benefit them

•the combined left (Vooruit, GROEN, PVDA) is at 34%; best since WW2

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1522678152090341376

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1522682154286735363

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https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1537898105735065600

LIBERALS IN DISARRAY.

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I didn't see your post, i made a thread about that in international general board

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=518837.0

Otherwise, i agree with you. Extreme-right is being normalized here.

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https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20220819_97623523

Conner Rousseau (Vooruit): "People who are woke are as intolerant as the extremes."

Well, we're getting to the point where social democratic ideology has become a toxic and repulsive one.

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Just a curiosity why orientale and occidentale? and not eastern and western

That's eastern and western in French...

they are the same in italian

I don't know, i live in West Flandres (the only province PVDA doesn't get a seat in), although it would be narrow.

This is the worst poll in terms of seat since last election for christian democrats, liberal family and the green family, they all have the lowest seat count. Flemish nationalist is also on the lower side. And far left is where they usually poll, although i think Brussels poll was better than the Wallonia and Flanders ones.

Best poll for far right in 1.5 years time, and best poll for social democrats since last election, esp. because of the overperformance by the Flemish counterpart where they are at the highest percentage in 15 years.



Also, i'm not voting socdem myself, not a chance. It has little to do with socialism. He's flirting with Danish social democracy, he's faux fake socialist, left liberal and started a personality cult and it works because Flemish people are so dumb.

He's very populist and unlikeable to me. He represents every embarrassing thing about Flanders and our Flemish media. And is also exploiting social media so much to an annoying extent.

He's the guy who said, "i know what it is to be working class, i did a vacation job as dishwasher".

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Vintage Walloon political story coming out in Le Soir. Jean-Claude Marcourt, the PS President of the Walloon Parliament and the MR Ombudsman-type figure (who is already on paid leave after allegations of bullying), went on a trip to Dubai with taxpayers money that included a business class flight, five star hotel and a 3000 euro "guide" (heavily hinted to be spent on hookers). They've asked for their own corruption vehicle parliament to investigate.

Meanwhile our public debt is at breaking point.

Wait,

The UAE has hookers?

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I'm sure some Atlas progressives will continue to tell me how cool it is to live in a PS-paradise though.

They do?

I mean, at the time when Wallonia rejected CETA, there were a bunch of cheerleaders of Magnette and the PS - without knowing that it was purely a move to see off PTB.

I wasn't on atlas back than, but I was proud at the time of Wallonia too but than again i'm part of the Flemish counterpart of PTB.