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

[Estrella]

In Flanders, Walter De Donder (Kabouter Plop, The Mayor from Samson & Gert -> two child shows) and Sammy Mehdi are the favourites for CD&V. De Donder would be a turn to the right while Mehdi would be a turn to the left.

What exactly would that entail? Would a turn to the right mean moving closer to the N-VA (more economically liberal and nationalist) and a turn to the left becoming something like ChristenUnie?

And, more generally, who votes for CD&V, other than retirees and farmers? Is the religious immigrant vote actually significant?

[Estrella]

Do they plan something like unity government for the duration of the corona, then resume negotiations, drag them on forever and let Wilmès stay in power until kingdom come or (more likely) N-VA gets fed up?

Anyway, here's an idea for a bet:
What will be the first dubious SHOCK POLL! to come after the grand coalition is formed?
a) VB at 40% in Flanders
b) PTB+Ecolo at 40% in Wallonia and/or Brussels

[Estrella]

Calls for new inquiry into Belgian police custody death

The wife of a Slovak man who died in Belgian police custody has called for a fresh inquiry after shocking images of his detention emerged.
Jozef Chovanec was arrested at Charleroi airport in 2018 after causing a disturbance on his flight.
While in custody, he began banging his head on the wall of his cell to the point of bleeding. A group of officers are later seen pinning him down.
Chovanec was taken to hospital, but fell into a coma and died the next day.
The images from the cell show several officers laughing during the incident, while another appears to give a Nazi salute. Another is filmed sitting on Chovanec's rib cage for 16 minutes.
His death has drawn parallels in Belgium with the case of George Floyd, who died in May after a police officer knelt on his neck during his arrest in the US.

I wonder if this is getting any coverage in Belgium, but I also have a related question: these types of people clearly vote VB in Flanders, but Wallonia has no relevant far-right parties and I don't think that les flics down there are less fash than anywhere else. Who would that Hitler-saluting cop vote for?

[Estrella]

hahahahaha

"The blue friends will have to get down on their knees, open their mouths and swallow whatever it takes. We will break them in opposition."

https://twitter.com/AhmedLaaouej/status/1308281382494285826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

1. Extremely Normal Bart is not taking it well
2. De Wever, B. is transitioning into Simpson, B. in opposition
3. Simpsons must be VB's dreamland: everyone is white, just like the glorious yellow flag.
4. On that topic: CD&V = Homer, openVLD = Burns, NVA = Bart, Groen = Lisa, VB = Nelson, PVDA = Willie ^{(though some of their voters love to pretend they're Lisa)}, sp.a = Moe, Volksunie (RIP) = Ned, Dedecker (RIH) = Krusty.

[Estrella]

A guess of national seat numbers if the results were like in that poll: VB 35-40, PVDA 5-8, PTB 15-20. Averaged and put together, it works out to 62 seats.

14, 14, fourteen seats short of a NazBol majority. In 2020, in a peaceful, prosperous Western European country.

Dear Belgian politicians, how did you manage to fxck up this much?

[Estrella]

Also,

Anyway, here's an idea for a bet:
What will be the first dubious SHOCK POLL! to come after the grand coalition is formed?
a) VB at 40% in Flanders
b) PTB+Ecolo at 40% in Wallonia and/or Brussels

I regret to say that both. And I thought it was ridiculous when I was writing that!

[Estrella]

If Melissa Depraetere becomes chairwoman of Vooruit, i would maybe vote Vooruit (social democratic)

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

haha what

also it was apparently considered for some time?

De naam SP.A (Socialistische Partij Anders of Sociaal Progressief Alternatief) dateert van 2001 en kwam er op initiatief van toenmalig partijvoorzitter Patrick Janssens.

I mean, it does sound like they're trying to outpathetic Lucht Oibre, but it's not like they have many options left.

[Estrella]

Today (and probably any day of Vivaldi) is a good day to watch this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Secession_hoax

[Estrella]

LOL

Ah yes, a symbolic representation of spinning deeper and deeper into the square-shaped black hole of Pasokification. The spirit of optimism that the party needs in these trying times.

More seriously, "what the f/ck does that thing mean" will be the most common reaction here, and it sums up why this sort of image change does nothing at best, and usually backfires badly, especially in a country like Belgium where parties have generally stable bases of support: potential new voters will be unconvinced by what they (rightly) see as window-dressing, while loyal old voters will feel betrayed and think that the party has left them.

[Estrella]

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.

There is no genocide in Xinjiang, nor is there a roundup campaign jailing regular people by even the thousands aside from separatists.

1920s: "there is no famine in the Soviet Union, only kulaks have no food"
1930s: "there is no antisemitic violence in Germany, only speculators had their shops attacked"
1950s: "there are no political prisoners in Eastern Europe, only bourgeoisie that worked with the West is in jail"
1970s: "there is no torture and mass murder in South America, and if there were, they were all communists anyway"
1980s: "there is no massacre of leftists and minorities in Iran, it's just Shah's puppets"
2020s:

[Estrella]

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.

Rhetoric and grandstanding like this aside, what policies have the past few PS governments (or the brief MR one for that matter) actually passed?

[Estrella]

Ngl it would be funny if the government fell because of a foreign policy issue for the second time in a row, in Belgium of  all places.

[Estrella]

the tax shift reducing charges on income in favour of increased VAT was blocked by the MR, who all parties in the Vivaldi, including Open VLD and De Croo, recognise as the ball and chain

Why on Earth would MR be opposed to that? Are many of their members the sort of small businessmen who get their €€€ from Frenchies and Germans shopping for cheaper cigarettes/alcohol/​petrol/​whatever?