The rise of the Worker's party in Belgium

[Vahnstad]

First of all, let me tell you that Belgium is a complex country with a Dutch-speaking northern part and a French-speaking southern part, some German municipilaties and the city of Brussels right in the centre, with all their own
constituencies

These are the opinion polls in Flandres. Nothing extra-ordinary is going on, however in the last two weeks, the news was dominated by corruption scandals by the traditional parties, including the conservative-liberal but flemish nationalist party represented by the yellow line. Blue is the conservative liberal party, red social democrat, orange christian democratic (center-politics and tradition party), green the greens, brown the separatist far-right and anti-islam party that advocates an independent flandres, however the support of that party declined in the last decade. The dark-red party is the relatively unknown worker's party and they are trying to have a breaktrough in Belgium and I believe their support wil increase. They finally managed to hit the election threshold, but they will definitely profit from recent corruption scandals and were very visible in the media over the last few months

But more interesting are the opinion polls in Wallonia where the worker's party are a real threat for the traditional parties and threaten to become the biggest party in the southern half. We have multiple governments (a result of the Flemish "movement), and in their local government the social democrat party and the christian democrats are currently governing and quite unpopular (being accused of not "left" enough, not "sincere" enough, and being the cause of a lot of unemployment). The conservative liberal party (blue line) currently is in the unpopular pro-Flemish national government, since they are the only Walloon party governing (but delivering the prime minister) since no other Walloon party wanted to govern with the conservative liberal flemish-minded party. As a consequence party, there is no real opposition party here, while the Walloons are very unhappy about the current governments. And many corruption scandals made the problem even more worse. It led to the current rise of the far-left party Worker's Party of Belgium that has a very charismatic party, and one of the few politicians being able to speak both in French and Dutch and therefore being very appealing to the people. In periods of a threatened break-up, he gives the people a "united" feeling.

It's obviously a controversial party, but to many people it's their only hope after being betrayed by the traditional politicial elite, and i can see them doing very well in the next Belgian elections.

http://www.politico.eu/article/the-...to-the-left-workers-party-ptb-raoul-hedebouw/

I also want to share this article from politico, because it really captures the essence.

 

[jackelgull]

I'm confused - why are the conservative Liberal party unpopular? Is it because they're pro Flemish?

 

[W|M]

The problem with Worker's Parties is what I like to think of as SYRIZA Syndrome. They get the support of a lot of people, promise a ton of good things, make everything seem hopeful but then destroy what could've been a lot bigger by demobilizing worker's movements, acting as a ''moderating'' force, making political compromises and alliances with supposedly inimical parties and organizations, and generally becoming more and more like all the rest of the political parties. If the Worker's Party takes power in Belgium, it'll quickly become like the social democrats, pretending to have socialist influences and policies while in reality enforcing the demands of the capitalists, just like any other party.

 

[Vahnstad]

I'm confused - why are the conservative Liberal party unpopular? Is it because they're pro Flemish?

They govern as only Walloon party with a lot of Flemish parties. Wallonia is left-minded, and there are no left parties in the current government because of the absence of the socialists.

only the dark blue party mr does represent Wallonia ignoring all left parties that did perform well. And Walloons really do hate N-VA since that's a Flemish nationalist and right-wing party. Cooperating with them as a Walloon party can make you very unpopular in Wallonia, but the N-VA is the biggest party of Flanders and they're hard to ignore. They blame the socialists for the mess created during previous years.

 

[jackelgull]

If they are that unpopular in Wallonia, why are they representing wallonia in the national stage? Surely a more left leaning party got more votes than them, so shouldn't that party be representing Wallonia in the national government? Or am I misunderstanding the situation

 

[Vahnstad]

The contrast between Wallonia and Flanders is the reason why we had no government for a long time

in 2007 the government formation took 196 days what was the second longest government formation of Europe
in 2010 the government formation took 589 days breaking the world record by almost 200 days and previously being held by Cambodja and/or Iraq.

 

[Vahnstad]

If they are that unpopular in Wallonia, why are they representing wallonia in the national stage? Surely a more left leaning party got more votes than them, so shouldn't that party be representing Wallonia in the national government? Or am I misunderstanding the situation

There is not enough support in Flandres for a left-wing government. That would result in no right-wing nationalist Flemish party in the government that had a landslide victory there, and they wouldn't been able to have a majority in seats, and that government would largely be unpopular in Flandres.

 

[jackelgull]

I just realized that the NVA are a Flanders party, ok. So what I'm wondering is why is the right so much more powerful in Flanders?

Is Flanders richer than Wallonia and therefore more conservative, or is the right wing in Flanders nationalist rather than economic?

 

[Vahnstad]

These are current seat projections. The right-wing flemish party N-VA is almost the opposite of the left-wing Walloon Ps and they can't cooperate together, because their issues are not similar and they campaign against each other. The CD&V and cdH are center-parties but the first slightly more right and flemish-minded representing that region and the latter one representing the walloons and positioning itself rather on the left side. They refused cooperating with N-VA since their members rejected the idea of joining the government and Ps wanted to form a regional Walloon government with them. Both the conservative liberal parties are in the government as well, but they won't have a majority anymore according to current polls. Vlaams Belang is a controversial anti-Islam, racist and pro-independent Flandres party and one of the most popular far-right parties in Europe with big victories in the past, almost becoming the biggest party earlier this century.

"The Vlaams Blok (English: Flemish Block, or VB) was a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform.[4] Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence of Flanders. From its creation in 1978, it was the most notable militant right wing of the Flemish movement. Vlaams Blok's track record in the Flemish and Belgian parliament elections was strong. The election campaigns consisted mainly of the immigration and law-and-order theme, combined with the desire for Flemish autonomy.

All significant Flemish political parties were reluctant to enter coalitions with the Vlaams Blok. Following a 1989 agreement, known as the cordon sanitaire, the party was effectively blocked from entering any level of government. The Court of Appeal in Ghent in April 2004 ruled that some of the party's organizations had breached the 1981 anti-racism law and that the party sanctioned discrimination. The ruling was made definite on 9 November 2004, and the party shortly after reorganised itself as the Vlaams Belang.[4] By 2004, the party had arguably become the single most popular Flemish party in Belgium, supported by about one in four of the Flemish electorate,[5] as well as being one of the most successful radical right-wing populist parties in Europe as a whole"

The PVDA/PTB is a far-left party and many parties already stated that they are radicals and extremists and that they won't cooperate with them in a government, but there are not that many options left over anymore. It would be a government of national unity including the Greens (8 parties) and even between the Flemish traditional and the Walloon traditional parties, there are a lot of disagreements. It's a complex country to govern, almost impossible.

 

[Vahnstad]

I just realized that the NVA are a Flanders party, ok. So what I'm wondering is why is the right so much more powerful in Flanders?

Is Flanders richer than Wallonia and therefore more conservative, or is the right wing in Flanders nationalist rather than economic?

Both, it's a rich and well-developed area comparable with the Netherlands while the southern part is an economically depressed area. The Flemish people don't like the fact that a lot of the Flemish money goes to the southern part, and they are nationalist-minded because of culture & languages differences and since we basically live apart.

 

[Vahnstad]

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The problem with Worker's Parties is what I like to think of as SYRIZA Syndrome. They get the support of a lot of people, promise a ton of good things, make everything seem hopeful but then destroy what could've been a lot bigger by demobilizing worker's movements, acting as a ''moderating'' force,>a making political compromises and alliances with supposedly inimical parties and organizations, and generally becoming more and more like all the rest of the political parties. If the Worker's Party takes power in Belgium, it'll quickly become like the social democrats, pretending to have socialist influences and policies while in reality enforcing the demands of the capitalists, just like any other party.

They can not deliver because they ultimately face a simple truth: If you do not keep up with the world economy you face drastic lack of means.
One may call this giving in to capitalists. But the only alternative is martyrdom. Which you must impose on millions.

 

[Vahnstad]

Belgium, the only place where they build highways for horses

more weird road construction because of our walloon-flemish argues

 

[Oerdin]

Belgium has always been an artificial country since it was created in the 1830's. I propose the French, Dutch, and tiny German parts be given to those respective countries with Brussels being given outright to the EU as a federal district. Belgium didn't even have a functioning government for over a year so I don't think anyone will care.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Flandern already broke away from Netherland

 

[Vahnstad]

New polling showed again a very good result for our communist party. They are now bigger than the long almighty socialists.

 

[Hygro]

I wish the graphs said what the colors mean

 

[Broken_Erika]

I wish the graphs said what the colors mean

It's the popularity of colours. Apparently not many people like pink or purple, blue and red are falling but maroon is more popular than ever.

 

[Colon]

Vahnstad, I think it's curious you're calling the blue line parties (ie Open VLD and MR) conservative-liberal. Especially since you're calling Flemish nationalist NVA conservative-liberal as well and they've often been clashing with it. I think plain liberal, maybe even left-liberal, would describe the parties just fine.

 

[Ryika]

but maroon is more popular than ever.

I told them this would happen, but they just dismissed me as a conspiracy theorist. Feels good to be vindicated.