2023-10-15 14:15:00
Maxime Prévot succeeded in his bet. The president of Les Engagés wanted to present all his top candidates for the elections (federal, regional and European) in June 2024 during his party’s back-to-school congress, on October 7, at Pairi Daiza park. He managed to meet deadlines, increasing the number of announcements during the month of September. “Maxime has worked like crazy in recent weeks,” smiles an Engagé tenor.
One name is not yet known, that of the head of the list in the Mons constituency for the Walloon Parliament. The party has indicated that it will be a woman from civil society, but that the latter might not yet reveal herself for professional reasons. But what can we learn from this casting that livened up the political comeback?
1. A renewal of executives facilitated by departures
A new party, Les Engagés, born from the refoundation of the CDH. A new manifesto. New political directions. All that was missing were the new faces. They are now known: the former boss of Walloon bosses Olivier de Wasseige, the epidemiologist Yves Coppieters, the former Walloon MP MR Lyseline Louvigny, the rector of UCLouvain Vincent Blondel, the journalist Armelle Gysen, the former boss from Charleroi airport Jean-Jacques Cloquet, the vice-president of the Christian Mutuality Élisabeth Degryse… Without forgetting the former minister MR Jean-Luc Crucke and the founder of Medi-Market Yvan Verougstraete, who arrived earlier at Les Engagés.
“It’s not because we were a boss that we have to go to the MR. Certainly not to the MR of today”
Maxime Prévot intended to renew the executives of his party. He got there. Of the 19 people designated head of the list for 2024, 12 were not five years earlier under the CDH banner (including Jean-Luc Crucke, who ran for the MR), and 6 were not even in politics.
This renewal was, however, facilitated by departures. The outgoing deputies André Antoine, Catherine Fonck, Alda Greoli, Céline Fremault, René Collin or Georges Dallemagne, all heads of the list during the 2019 elections, announced their withdrawal for 2024. The newcomers did not have to take their place , enough to avoid internal tearing, which is often painful.
Catherine Fonck will stop politics: “I need to find meaning in what I do”2. Barely a quarter of the heads of the list are women
Of the 19 heads of the list, 5 are women, barely one in four. The Engagés widened the imbalance already present in 2019 at the time of the CDH, with 13 men and 6 women. “You are a white man, 55 years old and you want to retrain? Look no further, Les Engagés have a top list for you […]”, quipped Walloon MP Rachel Sobry (MR) on the X network (formerly Twitter) at the end of September.
The Engagés had little appreciation of the remark and, in their communication, had highlighted their female figures, such as Marie Jacqmin (head of the regional list in Huy-Waremme) and Élisabeth Degryse (head of the federal list in Brussels). But the observation remains: the imbalance is obvious.
3. A positive dynamic is underway
This must be good for morale. The CDH, then Les Engagés were subscribed to bad news. Electoral results at half-mast, worrying polls, internal quarrels which are coming to light (on the Islamic headscarf, ritual slaughter or certain directions taken by the new manifesto, for example)… But since the start of the school year, the party has been surfing on positive communication around the arrival of personalities from civil society.
The two political polls published very recently (that of Ipsos and Kantar, published by La Libre and RTBF) make it difficult to measure in voting intentions the positive dynamic which seems to be supporting Les Engagés for the moment, because the polls were made before the party casting announcement was completed. But the reactions of the MR and Défi, direct competitors of the Engagés on the center-right of the political spectrum, are undoubtedly the best barometer. The members of these two parties are those who have commented the most on the Engagés transfer window. Often to denigrate him. No doubt a sign of a certain nervousness, while these two formations are crossed by internal dissensions.
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