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

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

What's up with the sudden increase in the Ecolo numbers?

1. ECOLO and Défi were the big mediatic winners over the summer because they were against the cdH "coup" but managed to offer a list of reforms that are attractive and remain constructive. PTB sort of faded into broken record territory. Anti-corruption is now their salient issue.
2. ECOLO are the party most likely to benefit from leftwing cdH voters unhappy with the new MR-cdH Walloon government.
3. They tend to do better in local and European elections because there is less responsibility attached and they tend to care about the urban planning, environment/ air pollution issues, etc
4. They are leading in Brussels-City polls for the moment; In Brussels local politics, there is the issue of mobility setbacks, and air pollution, as well as PS corruption.

Note for point 1 though that this poll was conducted before the revelations this week of a semi-prominent ECOLO member collecting a salary from an anti-nuclear power NGO when he had not worked for them for several years. Given ECOLO are also associated with a lot of these (ironically named) ASBL there might be more cases like this.

Another possibility, given that the last few Walloon/Brussels polls have been utterly all over the place, is that the pollster in question (who appears to be new to Belgian political polling) is just as hopeless as the rest of the Belgian polling industry and they're just being indulged by the media which traditionally doesn't understand how polls work and bigs up even the tiniest margin-of-error shift to a genuinely impressive degree.

But I digress.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The Samen cartel in Antwerp has split following a corruption case against sp.a's leading figure on the list, the same guy who was on texting terms with the construction company lobbyist who worked for De Wever. One happy family up there.

One of the more ridiculous decisions I have ever seen from Groen was the creation of that cartel. I make it a point that if the Greens in any country, let alone Belgium, want votes they should disassociate themselves from any so-called social-democratic party until after an election.

Still a long way to go but the nationalists and De Wever look safe in Antwerp for now. 

I regret to inform you that Paul Magnette has chosen to open his mouth on this topic.

http://www.lesoir.be/134719/article/2018-01-18/paul-magnette-les-wallons-sont-de-petits-arnaqueurs-en-comparaison-avec-la

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

When will Belgium split? This country never made any sense to me. The best would be to partition it between the Netherlands and France.

See, this is why people don't like the French...

Which controversial thing did I say?

It's not controversial at all, that's the point. At this point you are simply boring.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

When will Belgium split? This country never made any sense to me. The best would be to partition it between the Netherlands and France.

See, this is why people don't like the French...

Which controversial thing did I say?

It's not controversial at all, that's the point. At this point you are simply boring.

Well, fortunately I'm not posting here to please particular posters. So if you find me boring I invite you to either put me on ignore or to kindly **** off

Si seulement tu étais capable de plaire à quoi qui que ce soit. Je suis vraiment désolé que tu n'as pas eu assez d'attention de la part de tes parents, et je vais suivre ton conseil.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I'm surprised PVDA are standing still in Antwerp but seemingly gaining everywhere else.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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

If Molenbeek PTB have any brains at all they'll stay the hell away.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Really what's the point of the N-VA existing if the VB doesn't stay dead?

To be a disturbingly earnest tribute act to the Tories?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

VLD at 18%, lmao what

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Projected seat distribution for the Federal level

N-VA 25 (-8)
PS 19 (-4)
Vlaams Belang 18 (+15)
MR 15 (-5)
Ecolo 13 (+7)
CD&V 12 (-6)
Open Vld 12 (-2)
PTB*PVDA 12 (+12) -
SP.A 9 (-4)
Groen 8 (+2)
cdH 5 (-4)
Défi 2 (nc)
PP 0 (-1)

Based on these results, the Flemish leaders Combrez, Beke, Rutte and to a lesser extent De Wever have a lot of self-reflecting to do. PM Michel is toast. Bizarrely, none of the other Francophone leaders will really be at risk. Di Rupo will probably step aside permanently. Prévot can't be blamed.

I'll do region by region tomorrow. Wallonia and Brussels should be straightforward. Flanders ironically has the biggest headache for coalition making.

The official results page (https://elections2019.belgium.be/fr/resultats-chiffres?el=CK&id=CKR00000) still has PS at 20 and MR at 14 with just 4 polling stations to go.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

I thought Rousseau was on the left of the sp.a?

(Then again, this is the party that once fell head-over-heels for Bruno Tobback...)

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Oh yeah we forgot to mention they changed their name from sp.a to Vooruit (which in Dutch means "Forward" or "Avanti")

Wait, they're actually doing that? ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

cdh have changed their name to Les Engagés.

Pathetic really.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Joachim Coens, the president of CD&V, resigned over this poll yesterday. In possibly related news, yesterday I found out the president of CD&V is called Joachim Coens.