2023-10-22 15:53:00
The former president of the Flemish Liberals is stopping national politics, she will not be a candidate in the elections next year. Gwendolyn Rutten announced her decision this Sunday. She hoped to obtain the prestigious portfolio of Justice, her name was mentioned as one of the most likely avenues. But no… Old enmities within the Open VLD dampened his ambitions.
A liberal not enough to the right
With the departure of Gwendolyn Rutten, a (painful) page turns. In 2020, she announced that she would not run for a new term following spending seven years at the head of the Open VLD. The liberal, who displayed a progressive political line, then had to face powerful internal criticism. Some wanted the Open VLD to return to a more right-wing doctrine on the economic level. Among these protesters, we found… Vincent Van Quickenborne.
After the 2019 elections, Gwendolyn Rutten irritated some of her troops by quickly showing herself to be tempted by a federal majority agreement associating the liberals with the socialists and the ecologists. She seemed to submit to the plans of Paul Magnette, who assumed an informant mission. The end of this story is ironic: Egbert Lachaert will succeed him at the head of the Open by promising a “donkerblauw”, dark blue, policy. And, yet, it is he who will agree to take his party into Vivaldi, alongside the reds and the greens… Since then, Gwendolyn Rutten has remained discreet, assuming her mandate as mayor of Aarschot, in Flemish Brabant.
The fact of not having been retained as Minister of Justice also bears the trace of her poor relations with the Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo. The break between these two personalities dates from 2014. In the Michel government, the former president of the Flemish liberals had only entrusted him with barely visible skills. He was dissapointed. Within the Open VLD, it was Maggie De Block who won the big portfolio: Social Affairs and Public Health. Nine years later, would Alexander De Croo have paid him back?
At its lowest in the polls, the Open VLD fears for its future: “Were we right to accept the post of Prime Minister?”
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