Belgian Politics & Elections: Federal Election May 26, 2019

[DavidB.]

Ah, I knew about Voeren but I didn't know that Défi tends to run at the provincial level in Limburg; logical choice though. You vote Défi too, right?

[Laki]

Looks like PS will not be harmed too much in Liege-City. Very poor result for PTB not even getting to 10%.

Mons and Charleroi will also stay in PS hands...

They seem to do best in the provinces of Antwerp and Limburg, despite a terrible result in Genk for the entire left. In Zelzate, it seems like PVDA will get on par with the result of 2012, but i had expected more... In the Antwerp suburbs, Hasselt and Ghent the PVDA seems to do the best results.

In my province, we don't have a breakthrough (as expected) but it's even less good than expected unfortunately. I might have to vote (reluctantly) Green next year in my province for federal & regional elections, because a vote for PVDA will be thrown away especially here.

[Zinneke]

Ah, I knew about Voeren but I didn't know that Défi tends to run at the provincial level in Limburg; logical choice though. You vote Défi too, right?

I voted for them today locally for entirely local reasons, I would consider them for regional and maybe federal especially if Clerfayt takes over from Maingain, but I do not like their intransigent stance on federal debate. They have come a long way from being the anti-Flemish party (Clerfayt and Gosuin voluntarily include Flemish lists in their majorities) but I still feel voting for them federally is conveying a bad message. They are still infinitely better than the traditional parties though.

[Zinneke]

Woah, RTBF saying in Liege-Province and Namur-Province PS are failing hard...-20%. ECOLO would be the largest party in Liege-Province.

EDIT : ECOLO ahead in Ixelles/Elsene

[Laki]

One thing that i've noticed... pollings aren't very reliable here as well. One polling said N-VA would be the big winner in the Brussels election, and they've lost compared to 2012.

[Zinneke]

One thing that i've noticed... pollings aren't very reliable here as well. One polling said N-VA would be the big winner in the Brussels election, and they've lost compared to 2012.

N-VA-s popularity was due to francophones indicating they would vote for them at regional level. Remember right-wing francophones have their own right-wing choices to make at local but benefit if they vote N-VA at regional because of the surreal college system meaning they can genuinely influence the government.

Also the Schild and Vrienden scandal and the racist remarks of one of their Bxl candidates will not have helped in Brussels. For example, some Dutch diaspora with similar views to David or mvd would have been bread and butter for the N-VA until that sort of confirmed the underlying problem with their movement.   

EDIT : Clerfayt wins in Schaerbeek with his green partners progressing. Good results for PTB.

ECOLO neck and neck with PS at Bruxelles ville. Close (PS Mayor) is toast.

[Laki]

Jean-Marie DeDecker (right-wing populist / libertarian) will be the new mayor of Middelkerke... I must say i'm quite happy for him. He had a rough political career, and was basically almost politically burnt, but he will finally have a mandate after all those years in opposition.

[DavidB.]

How does the mayor thing work? The biggest party gets the mayor, or do they have to form coalitions? In the latter case, how does someone like Dedecker or, even more extreme, the VB person in Ninove become mayor?

Jean-Marie DeDecker (right-wing populist / libertarian) will be the new mayor of Middelkerke... I must say i'm quite happy for him. He had a rough political career, and was basically almost politically burnt, but he will finally have a mandate after all those years in opposition.

I think you must be the only PVDA voter who approves of Kurz and is happy for JMDD

[Laki]

How does the mayor thing work? The biggest party gets the mayor, or do they have to form coalitions? In the latter case, how does someone like Dedecker or, even more extreme, the VB person in Ninove become mayor?

Jean-Marie DeDecker (right-wing populist / libertarian) will be the new mayor of Middelkerke... I must say i'm quite happy for him. He had a rough political career, and was basically almost politically burnt, but he will finally have a mandate after all those years in opposition.

I think you must be the only PVDA voter who approves of Kurz and is happy for JMDD

DeDecker has an absolute majority.

I like it when there is a fresh breathe of air through something. I don't like it when parties or politicians stay too long in power. That's why i disapprove s.pa / PS mostly (party of power, party that declines, lost touch with the people and are involved in many corruption scandals). PVDA-PTB is a new challenger on the left with fresh ideas that i like, and i'm a democratic socialist (similar to Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn's movements...) but i don't participate in the "let's all bash the right" part of the left (and vice versa, because the right does the same as well).

If the right can do something good, you just have to tell it that they can do their job on this and this. In a democracy, you'll have to work together with other political parties, and that's sometimes with parties that can be vastly different when it comes to policies. Especially locally, this is something that is possible. DeDecker won in a city that basically doesn't have a strong left-wing base, so it was either going to be him or a different centre-right liberal or christian democrat who were in power in the last 6 years and didn't do well. Dedecker knows what to do, and will bring the necessary change. He is also a honest (way too honest) person, very direct and the man you have to vote for if you want direct democracy which is important to me (direct elections, being more in touch with people, etcetera...).

Kurz does the same and might be "kind of a populist" in some way, but at least, what i admire about his approach is that the OVP learns about their mistakes and change their policies, in order to prevent the FPO from rising to absolute power. You'll have politicians who ignore trends and eventually lead their political party into ashes (literally). I mean, i would vote for a different political party if i was Austrian, but i have no reason to disapprove him (that might still come) yet. Kurz isn't ignorant to the problems / issues Europe faces, and that's something you clearly see with a lot of western politicians.

[Laki]

How does the mayor thing work? The biggest party gets the mayor, or do they have to form coalitions? In the latter case, how does someone like Dedecker or, even more extreme, the VB person in Ninove become mayor?

They do form coallitions mostly. The biggest party doesn't get automatically the mayor unless they have an absolute majority. In Ninove it's uncertain whether the far-right will continue to serve the mayor or not.

In my city, it went between the CD&V (christian democrats) and the OVLD (liberals), and the CD&V is expected to be the biggest and also has the current incumbent, but there has been talks / rumours between a coalition between OVLD, N-VA and s.pa. Of course, i really don't think this is democratic, and i support the incumbent right now which has done a good job for the most part (but not all). We also have the Greens (who have a popular candidate), the far-right (which were invisible in the campaign) and the far-left which i've voted for.

The first results show that the pre-agreement might fail because they lack one seat to form a coalition, mostly because a lot of N-VA voters voted for VB (N-VA lost heavily here, VB won heavily), but ironically the high amount of VB voters here might save the current incumbent (CD&V). My political party has 3,6% of the vote, not enough for a seat, but a remarkable good result and the best result in my province, and probably even the 5th best result of West & East Flanders combined (after Sint-Niklaas, Zelzate, Ronse and Ghent). Ronse is my birth city as well, hope they'll have a seat there. They have one in Sint-Niklaas (which was close). Green fails to have third seats, which was their ambition here.

[Zinneke]

ECOLO are having an amazing night. Terrible for MR in Brussels who could only end up with 1 mayor in Brussels. Losing Ixelles, Molenbeek, UCCLE!!!! and also losing badly in extensions of their Brussels electorate in Brabant Wallon. 

[Heat]

Looks like PS will not be harmed too much in Liege-City. Very poor result for PTB not even getting to 10%.

Mons and Charleroi will also stay in PS hands...

PTB might actually be second in Charleroi according to RTBF.

[Laki]

The results in the cities seems to be very disappointing for the left. It's still early, but in Ghent, the liberals come surprisingly very close. s.pa-groen loses heavily. The results in Ghent are very good for PVDA however.

In Antwerp: Greens don't win as much as expected, and nationalists stay on par with their result in 2012 which was not expected as well. Current coalition might just continue.

[Heat]

ECOLO are having an amazing night. Terrible for MR in Brussels who could only end up with 1 mayor in Brussels. Losing Ixelles, Molenbeek, UCCLE!!!! and also losing badly in extensions of their Brussels electorate in Brabant Wallon. 

Vincent De Wolf is looking set to comfortably hang on in Etterbeek, alas.

[Zinneke]

Looks like PS will not be harmed too much in Liege-City. Very poor result for PTB not even getting to 10%.

Mons and Charleroi will also stay in PS hands...

PTB might actually be second in Charleroi according to RTBF.

Yeah, so that would reverse the trend and implant them in Hainaut. Problem for them is Magnette and Merckx hate each other so they might be irrelevant.

Also PP have underwhelmed again, especially when you look at VB's good results up north. Splintered far right in Wallonia and Modrikamen's inability to talk working class language is hurting them.

ECOLO are having an amazing night. Terrible for MR in Brussels who could only end up with 1 mayor in Brussels. Losing Ixelles, Molenbeek, UCCLE!!!! and also losing badly in extensions of their Brussels electorate in Brabant Wallon.  

Vincent De Wolf is looking set to comfortably hang on in Etterbeek, alas.

Yeah, Ixelles in MR hands always felt like an anomaly at times. Its clearly got districts that are upper class but it also has Matongé, Flagey, etc. Etterbeek on the other hand is still very professional middle class.

MR losing Uccle is also due to Dedecker's Kazakhgate corruption scandal and a dissident liberal list.


EDIT : Ugh Onkelinkx is on TV. But she is reminding  something very important regarding DavidB's question here :

How does the mayor thing work? The biggest party gets the mayor, or do they have to form coalitions? In the latter case, how does someone like Dedecker or, even more extreme, the VB person in Ninove become mayor?

In Flanders you can still turn over the leading party through a coalition. In Wallonia the most voted candidate is mayor "by law" but I think it just gives them initiative to form a coalition. Bart Maddens also wrote an article saying why Wallonia was starting to reverse the partiocracy at local level, while Flanders was going the opposite direction :

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/09/08/opinie-bart-maddens-ik-wou-dat-ik-een-waal-was/

[Heat]

Looks like PS will not be harmed too much in Liege-City. Very poor result for PTB not even getting to 10%.

Mons and Charleroi will also stay in PS hands...

PTB might actually be second in Charleroi according to RTBF.

Yeah, so that would reverse the trend and implant them in Hainaut. Problem for them is Magnette and Merckx hate each other so they might be irrelevant.

Also PP have underwhelmed again, especially when you look at VB's good results up north. Splintered far right in Wallonia and Modrikamen's inability to talk working class language is hurting them.

Magnette is already discounting an alliance with the PTB.

[Umengus]

First result good for De Wever in Antwerp: (5/9)

NVA 36
groen 18
spa 11
VB 10
PVDA 9
CDV 7
VLD 5

[Umengus]

in ninove: (7/14)

VB 40
VLD 26
samen 22
NVA 9

[Zinneke]

Di Rupo has been beaten by his second on the list. Major scalp of the night, but planned by the PS and himself to ease him out. Will probably resign now.

[Laki]

VB does really well also in Denderleeuw.

[Zinneke]

Great suspense in Antwerp where the provisional results mean if the ruling coalition lose one seat in the next 3 districts they lose their majority. You can play around with the coaltion maker and results. Luckily for N-VA, VB are basically blocking any left coalition and making De Wever "incontournable". I predict this will be the same for the federals next year. Antwerp a predictor once again.

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/#/11/1/11002/coalitie

[Zinneke]

Here the VRT did a seat projection of the Flemish parliament if the Provincial elections were Regional



I think N-VA will do better as VB take a lot of anti-establishment votes in these kind of "midterm" elections.

And VB leader Van Grieken saying he wants to work with N-VA in the communes they have a majority in

https://twitter.com/tomvangrieken/status/1051531312564228096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[mvd10]

Did he just say ''alternatieve rechtse meerderheden'' lol.

[Zinneke]

So Bartje keeps his majority in Antwerp, although Kris Peeters, who got absolutely humiliated, has already hinted he could drop the coalition. It should be straightforward for the N-VA in Antwerp though, especially compared to what the polls were indicating.

Clerfayt on RTBF saying he wasn't satisfied with Défi's results and that there would be a debriefing at the party office...all that with a wry smile that indicates he's going to go forward with another leadership challenge.

Hedebouw almost getting his dick out announcing the results of PTB/PVDA in Flemish villages to a darkened room. I thought he was going to break out into a cabaret act.

Overall I'm glad I watched the RTBF's coverage over VRT, its always hilariously amateurish but it  has an entente with the vieuwer to not take itself too seriously, just like this beautiful country.

The major "surprises" of this evening I guess :

ECOLO winning Ixelles with 33%, and winning PS bastion Forest, to confirm their implantation in Brussels.
MR potentially losing Uccle.
PTB doing better than expected in Hainaut and worse than expected in Liege and surrounding regions, although Liege looks like it will be last to declare.
JM Dedecker actually winning an election
VB overperforming all round thanks to a late surge.

[Laki]

The PS of Molenbeek didn't exclude a coalition with the PTB.