2023-12-30 06:17:00
Voters will renew the federal and regional parliaments in 2024. Polls indicate strong progress by parties located at the ends of the political spectrum. Is this worrying for the constitution of the next majorities?
The most striking trend encompasses the rise of the extremes, but more broadly the structural reduction in the weight of the traditional political families, liberal, Catholic and socialist. In 1987, in the House, these three families totaled 79% of the votes. In 2010, they fell below 60%. In 2019, they are at 45% and the polls announce an overall score of the same nature, or even lower. This not only reflects a rise in extremes, but a stacking of divisions. Three major divisions initially structured the history of Belgium, a Church-State divide, a wealthy-workers divide and a center-periphery divide which essentially became a divide between the two large linguistic communities. These divisions are still present, but have been added a divide between economy and environment and a divide that we can call, for lack of a better term, cosmopolitanism-identity, with populist or far-right parties which embody the identity pole. And we see no reason why the number of cleavages would decrease. Reality is reshuffling the political cards. The Church-State divide, for example, which was in decline, is experiencing renewed vigor around Islam. So the complexity is greater than ever and the formation of the next federal government will be long and difficult. It will likely be necessary to form a coalition of at least six parties.
What coalition in 2024?
Which will complicate the life of the government that will result…
Not necessarily. There is no systematic correlation between the number of parties and the difficulty of reaching agreement in a coalition. If we think back to the second government led by Guy Verhofstadt, what we called The Violet following the 2003 elections, there were only two main political trends and cohesion was weak. Laurette Onkelinx even spoke of an unnatural coalition.
The marriage of water and fire…
So. Conversely, in certain respects, the majority led by Elio Di Rupo with six parties aroused very strong union opposition, but it implemented an ambitious program at the institutional, economic and budgetary level. It is not the number of parties that we should worry regarding. It is fear of the next elections that can inhabit these parties, sometimes the day following an election.
The first Verhofstadt government carried out some important ethical measures, the Di Rupo government carried out a reform of the State. Does a coalition ultimately only work if it has a strong project behind it?
Quite. So it’s a matter of circumstances. We know that the current government was born following a very long crisis, unrelated to the preparation of state reform. And its training was accelerated by the health crisis. There was no momentum at the start.
In a democratic state, should we not associate extremist parties like Vlaams Belang and the PTB with power if they receive a significant percentage of the votes?
The logic of the system dictates that we can envisage this scenario since these parties are not banned, in accordance with the spirit of democracy which notes that there is no objective scale of political values, that there is no There is no possibility or right to filter legitimate opinions a priori. We might even imagine associating these parties with power since the system has safeguards which are supposed to protect it from possible excesses. If they were associated with power, these parties would have to respect the laws and the decisions of high courts which determine the constitutional character or not of certain political ambitions. They should also respect international treaties, including all European Union treaties. The problem is that in practice these safeguards are not always enough to avoid excesses that are harmful to democracy.
Blocking the Belang
For example ?
In Hungary and Poland, we saw the dismantling or undermining of entire sections of the rule of law: the independence of the media, the independence of the judiciary. We saw during the Trump era how a populist presidency, which in Belgium we would call far-right, can alter the social body and lead to an insurrectional dynamic. We must not underestimate the dictatorial temptation, in the broad sense of the term, which is carried by far-right parties or right-wing populist parties. They are not only problematic because they carry a program of discrimination on the basis of nationality, ethnicity or religion. They also put democracy and the rule of law at risk.
And Italy?
It’s still too early to judge. We see a President of the Council who subscribes, to the great dismay of some of her partners, to the European logic and that of NATO. But on the refugee issue it has taken morally unacceptable and otherwise ineffective measures. We can therefore play the card of associating these parties with power, hoping to delegitimize them through their record, which will be mediocre. At the same time, does the simple fact of accepting them in power and forming a coalition with them not legitimize their ideas and practices?
In a coalition, we have to make compromises…
We might associate one or the other extreme party so that part of its program is implemented. This would reduce the pressure. But we risk seeing this same party take advantage of its position of power to obtain deals that are politically or morally dubious. So it’s a real case of conscience for non-extreme parties who would accept this type of coalition.
The examples you cite are classified as far-right. Does the question of conscience arise in the same way for far-left parties?
Vlaams Belang and the PTB-PVDA should not be put on the same level. There is no threat to public or individual freedoms in the PTB program, no discrimination program. There is a program to break with capitalism, which is however inapplicable within the European framework.
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