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

[Lord Halifax]

1rst of may a big day for most Belgian parties due to their links with the unions. They've all unveiled different political plans in the hope of convincing they represent the working man or woman of the street.
The biggest news is that Raoul Hedebouw, the popular spokesperson of PTB, has been stabbed in the arse.

Is he going to be okay ? What happened ? I've watched a few of his appearances in Parliament and they're always a good watch.

He's fine, he gave a speech just after, but he's taken two weeks off campaigning to recover from what must be a bit of a shock.

Yeah his speeches are worth checking out, and its funny the way he switches language when his target/mood changes. I think Hedebouw is the bright side of the PTB and its easy to see why they insist on putting him on TV more than the others.

N-VA president Bart de Wever, hence forth BDW, has released a book detailing his vision for confederalism. Its really what he has been describing for years now : two "nations" - Flanders and "Francophones" - deciding on what competences to share. The headline policy is the decision to strip Brussels of its regional status and have Brusselaren decide which nation they should belong to. Confederalism is a win-win for the N-VA because if it fails then they can proceed to argue for independence.

Their main issue though is the current lack of interest in the institutional matters (I think BHV being "solved" helps this, although it will likely flair up again once N-VA/Défi need more votes). And the fact that the younger the demographic the more pro-federalist they tend to be.

Why do young people like federalism?

[Lord Halifax]

Apparently, during his last speech, Michel tried to do some concessions to the left, with doing a lot of ambitious leftist proposals that stunned political analists in order to save his government. But it didn't help because the government falls. Snap elections aren't likely though, because the experts said that this is a government in current affairs, which is maybe a good thing, as elections in january (three elections in one year) would have a bit too much, and wouldn't have offered anything as it is very unlikely a government would have formed between january and may (as they would want to wait what the results would have been for regional elections).

The Flemish liberal chairwoman did sent a tweet where she explained (in different words) that she wasn't very happy with the concessions the prime minister offered to the left, so this once again proves that the Flemish liberals are more right-wing on economic issues than the MR.

So the government will just continue as a caretaker government until the next election?

"A government in current affairs" is an odd phrase, but I assume it just means a caretaker government.