Coronatax was proposed for the second time. PS made no secret they want a millionaires tax and approved it. S.pa and the green parties abstained. Other parties rejected it. Meanwhile s.pa chairman said he was open to more decentralization and another state's reform, to appease N-VA.
I would vote for MR before I ever vote for flemish social democrats, and I disapprove green too. They're too right-wing for me. Also why copy other party platforms if you can actually stick to the original. If i was a liberal, i would vote for liberal. If i wanted another state's reform, i would vote N-VA. Like for real.
How different are pvda and ps in practical terms, aside from the obvious social democratic vs socialist labels?
The PS calls itself socialist and not necessarily social democratic and it sings the Internationale. So in terms of labels, they both claim that one.
The PS is the political wing of the broad traditional labour movement in Wallonia and Brussels that has existed for more than a century and is a political behemoth with many wings within the party, often with cleavages relating to geographical location rather than ideology (for example, the main rivalry is often the Hainaut PS vs Liège PS vs Brussels PS). Its credo though is that it feels it is entitled to govern no matter what the electoral score as it feels it has a responsibility towards the working classes as a representative , and argues that without its presence in government the
social dialogue of Belgium would be one sided towards the bourgeois/entrepreneurial class. In that sense its a patrician party, just like MR and cdH, that relies on being a government power to deliver a service towards a particular class and coalition of unions, mutualities, NGOs etc. Its why the political Right often label the PS as a clientelist party, but then MR is one too in many respects, and cdH is the worst of the three.
The PVDA/PTB - which is a federal, "unitarist" party - differs from the PS because its a relatively small, activist-based (as opposed to "higher" civil society with the PS) testimonial party that doesn't seek to govern through what they perceive as bourgeois structures. Instead, they try to build working class consciousness through local democratic action like the People's Hospitals (inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Podemos) and only enter federal politics to do what testimonial parties tend to do well when they succeed : shift the debate towards particular issues, and make parties like the PS think about swinging leftwards to counter them.
What their long term goal and vision is, you will have to ask Laki.
