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

[DavidB.]

I'd like to have a thread on political developments in my neighbors' country. If I understood correctly, federal elections take place once in five years instead of once in four years since 2014, so the next federal election is scheduled in 2019. There will be municipal and provincial elections in Flanders in October 2018; I don't know about Wallonia.

The current right-wing federal government consists of the Flemish nationalist N-VA, the Flemish liberal Open VLD, the Flemish Christian Democratic CD&V and the Walloon liberal MR. The Flemish government consists of N-VA, CD&V and Open VLD. The Walloon government consists of the social democratic PS and the Christian Democratic cdH.

Assistance by our Belgian posters (Rogier, InsulaDei, Umengus?) is highly appreciated, as my knowledge of Belgian political developments is shockingly limited.

[DavidB.]

When will Belgium split up?

Never.

how extremist is nva?

Not extremist. They're soft nationalists and soft populists in style, but in terms of the actual policies they carry out they are just your average center-right party (and, as Rogier aptly said, pretty comparable to the Dutch VVD). They are not euroskeptical and only pretend to be skeptical of non-Western immigration.

[DavidB.]

If I understood correctly you can vote for more than one candidate as long as these candidates belong to the same party. How does this work?

[DavidB.]

Wow. In the Netherlands people continue to spread the urban myth that your vote ends up with the largest party if you don't vote, but apparently a blanc vote in Belgium does exactly that. Does an invalid vote (e.g. by voting for candidates on different lists) have the same effect?

The rule with voting for multiple candidates makes much sense to me. If I understand the system correctly, if a list gets 4 seats, these seats will simply go to the four candidates that have received the most votes, right? There is no threshold (like the Dutch 25% one in parliamentary elections) that a candidate has to reach before they can jump the list?

[DavidB.]

And the next election takes place together with the next federal election in 2019, right?

[DavidB.]

Why is the MR so strong in Brussel-Hoofdstad? Suburbanites?

[DavidB.]

This sure doesn't look like a cordon sanitaire to me...

[DavidB.]

Quite the scandal in Belgium at the moment: the identitarian Flemish nationalist youth movement Schild en Vrienden, which received quite some press over the course of the last months with as high point a meeting between their leader Dries Van Langenhove and Viktor Orbán, was the subject of a documentary by the Belgian public broadcaster. S&V tended to present themselves as a highly respectable "metapolitical" movement aimed at strengthening the Flemish youth and instilling them with conservative family values. However, the Belgian public broadcaster had been given access to their secret Discord server, in which highly racist, antisemitic, violent and pro-Nazi messages and memes were shared, alongside the intention to make a "long march through the institutions". A number of members had high-ranking positions on certain boards, and others were local candidates for the N-VA in the upcoming election in October. All political parties have distanced themselves from S&V, the N-VA have sacked almost all candidates who were S&V members, and leader Van Langenhove was expelled from Ghent University.

[DavidB.]

Welcome, Lakigigar, and thank you for your contributions! Always eager to learn more about the neighbors' politics.

Can you (and/or Rogier) help me understand MR better? Are they generally to the right of Open VLD? Is it just generally middle-class people who vote for them? To what extent do Walloon and Flemish socialists, Christian Democrats and liberals coordinate their actions?

[DavidB.]

Many thanks for your insightful responses. Will look at the articles: my French should be good enough.

[DavidB.]

How about this new Muslim party? Are they going to run anywhere?

[DavidB.]

Results will be released at 15.00h tomorrow. If David or a mod can edit the title to indicate this is happening that'd be cool.

Done.

[DavidB.]

Live stream VRT here - in Dutch and focused on Flanders. Will there be any exit polls?

[DavidB.]

Typical Belgian problems right now: too many chocolate stores in Bruges, with a renowned chocolatier complaining about the increased competition and non-Belgian chocolate being sold. The liberals, of all parties, now wish to limit the number of chocolate and beer stores targeting tourists.

[DavidB.]

First trends: nationalists seems to not do well. Liberals also lose a bit. Christian democrats & far-right win votes. On the left, not a clear trend yet (maybe we need to wait for more cities to come in).

With nationalists I assume you mean just the N-VA? Because the combined score of N-VA and VB seems to be increasing slightly.

[DavidB.]

Genk (50%)

CDV (pro-erdogan): 36 (-4)
NVA (kurd): 30

What?

[DavidB.]

Thanks for your explanation on Genk.

What's going on in Voeren? How can Défi run for provincial council there (I assume it's part of Limburg?)

[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?

[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

[DavidB.]

Would it be possible to have VB vote for the liberal candidate and to carry on with a minority government, or would it be seen as a violation of the cordon sanitaire? I imagine that this would be especially controversial in Gent of all places...

[DavidB.]

Clear, thanks for your answer!

Apparently De Wever has referred to certain party members at his party event as his 'shield and his friends', mocking the Schlild & Vrienden scandal. LOL.

[DavidB.]

Why did the PVDA perform so well in Zelzate?

[DavidB.]

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2018/10/10/vrt-probe-reveals-true-face-of-rightist-organisation/

The S&V scandal with english subtitles.

The impact of the scandal on the N-VA in the runup to the election has been non-negligible, no doubt about it. But the framing in the Pano documentary was incredible and the subsequent witchhunt was astounding to me. Every private political chat group in which insiders in political organizations talk strategy with each other contains content that is "embarrassing" and should not be shown publicly. There were almost 200 people in the S&V Discord group (way too many and a serious error on DVL's part to post sensitive content in such a group). Almost all of them were pretty right-wing and so it is no surprise that a lot of politically incorrect memes were shared. Some of them were disgusting, no doubt about it, but it takes either a boomer or a completely dishonest left-wing journalist to think the content of these memes necessarily reflects the way these people truly think. The subsequent witchhunt by the media and even DVL's university almost seemed orchestrated, and the idea that DVL would be both responsible for and fully supportive of the content of all offensive memes in the Discord group is absurd. The police investigation, including a police visit to DVL's parents' house, can only be viewed as an attempt to scare off patriotic youth: "don't be a nationalist activist, because you'll get in trouble." Almost totalitarian.

This rebuttal was spot on, in my view.

[DavidB.]

S&V definitely engage in framing themselves, but I think there is a difference between a political organization (which S&V is, even though they call themselves 'metapolitical') presenting itself in the best possible way - which is something all political organizations do - and a documentary by a public broadcaster broadcasting a documentary clearly aimed at portraying said political movement in the worst possible way by using framing techniques - the music, the continuous use of the word 'secret' rather than 'private' groups, the insinuations...

A political organization seeking to have as many people as possible run for and be elected to offices in which people exert power is not 'infiltration', it is part of the political game played by every serious political actor. The term 'infiltration' was a frame too.

Otherwise: no doubt some of the memes were extremely tasteless (the Holocaust isn't funny), and no doubt they made a serious mistake by saying such things in a Discord group with almost 200 people. They partly have themselves to blame. But I don't think S&V are neo-Nazis. They're nationalists who dislike the establishment, like edginess and, because they are all young men, like the competition of who can think of the most edgy and controversial things. Which is not smart and an extremely bad look when it becomes public (and they have themselves to blame for it), but a serious threat to anybody or to democracy it is not. And something tells me Pano is more interested in unveiling supposed scandals on the right than on the left or in Islamist circles.

[DavidB.]

If the N-VA pull out of the coalition now, it seems to me that it would be really difficult to build a new coalition with MR, Open VLD and CD&V after the federal election - or is the coalition basically done anyway?

Regardless, a really difficult situation for the N-VA. Not sure it was smart for them to go high profile with this and to oppose the agreement if there was no chance Belgium would actually pull out: Belgium signing it anyway would seem like the N-VA caving in. It would be the perfect proof for VB to claim that the N-VA don't get anything done and are spineless (can see that "de verandering werkt" or "de kracht van verandering" coming back like a boomerang). On the other hand, the N-VA might be able to minimize the damage if they get to oppose the Compact in a parliamentary vote, which will presumably lead to a clear majority for Marrakesh either way.