How is the big collection organized to finance the PTB? Apart from a few high-profile gondola heads (Raoul Hedebouw, Sofie Merxcx or Germain Mugemangango), the members of the PTB cultivate discretion, while the internal functioning remains quite opaque.
Free has therefore contacted a dozen former members or elected members of the PTB, from all the regions of Wallonia and Brussels and who, for the most part, do not know each other. Objective: to understand the internal workings of the party, particularly in financial terms. In most cases, these reported pressure from the party hierarchy to push for the largest possible financial contribution. These pressures, as well as the financial investment to be made, often weighed in on the decision to leave the party.
“They wanted me to give them part of the sale of my garage”
”I was an activist for 13 years. I did not pay contributions because I was unemployed. In my entourage, for the activists who contributed, it might go from 200 to 900 euros per month. I have worked countless hours for the party as a volunteer. I helped at all the receptions, I worked in the kitchen, I set up the tent for parties, tells us Zahour Loulaji, municipal councilor at the City of Brussels, who left the PTB in 2019, along with two other elected officials, before joining the MR, more recently. “One day I inherited a garage, for 20,000 euros. The party treasurer (member of the grassroots group) asked me to donate part of the sale to the party. But I refused and anyway, it was too late. I refuse to be scammed.”
Once the break with the party has been consummated, it is also often a whole social life that collapses. Because those who leave the PTB often lose, de facto, their links with those who are still there. “We were a beautiful family. I am disappointed today. I was too naive. As I see it today, I was scammed for 13 years. We were like hypnotized”.
“My wife was not a member of the party and that did not help…”
”Financially, becoming an activist of the PTB implies a financial contribution. They apply a coefficient in relation to the fact of being cohabiting. My wife was not a member of the party and that did not help… I was struck by the dissonance between the fact that the PTB considers the fact of being cohabiting in the calculation of the reference amount and its fight once morest the existence of this status and for the individualization of the rights”, emphasizes Philippe Defrise. This former president of the local PTB section in Chatelet (Hainaut) was poached by the PS in 2018. Engaged in militant training, he had finally given up. “I remember a doctor, a member of the party, who worked for the people’s homes. He had refused to become an activist because he did not know how to explain to his wife the financial aspect of joining the PTB. In the end, I felt out of place. People are on the brink of poverty, unemployed, but instead of helping them find a job, the PTB grabs them to serve the party.”
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“There is a strong insistence that we give the maximum to the party”
“I was hired in 2017, following having applied for secretary, without being a member of the party. I then worked for the Walloon deputy Frédéric Gillot, but I never met him. From the moment they asked me to be on the lists, they did everything to persuade me to contribute”, often says Patricia Van Muylder, former provincial councilor in Namur, who left the PTB in 2019, before joining the PS. “They asked me for a role snippet warning. There is a strong insistence on giving the maximum. But I have always refused to be an activist because my husband is self-employed and he did not want to give his income statement, nor have his income included in the balance (Editor’s note: for the calculation of the reference amount). He was not once morest the ideas of the PTB, but rather once morest the operation. One of my friends received 1,500 euros a month and gave 300 to the party. You also have to give a lot of your time. You no longer have a private life when you are an activist. Me, I was frowned upon because I had an old Mercedes. When I came to a party, I was asked to park far away so that the members wouldn’t see that I was driving this car. You mightn’t show any outward signs of wealth.”.
The PTB, for its part, denies any financial pressure. “We obviously explain what the rules are.”
“The PTB has good ideas, but their sectarian side displeased me”
”To become an activist, you have to follow a training course of 6 or 7 Saturdays, in a sort of Marxist university in Waterloo. Over the weekends, the trainers made it clear to us that being activists is a commitment. And that there is no commitment without financial commitment. At the end, they asked me for my role snippet warning. I refused. I felt that I had given enough out of my own pocket as an activist during the election campaign”, tells us Alain Nicolas, head of the PTB list in the last regional elections in the province of Luxembourg, who left the party in July 2019, then also joined the PS. This request for an extract from the role formulated by the party was also told to us by Patricia Van Muylder, while others were not confronted with it. The PTB strongly denies having ever requested this document. “We trust our members,” assured the Walloon deputy Germain Mugemangango.
“I said: I have three children, I’d rather go to a restaurant with them than to contribute money to the party every month. They took it badly, but they were stuck because we were already in the campaign and I was at the top of the list. This somewhat sectarian side of the PTB displeased me when I was there.”
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This refusal marks the beginning of a break between Alain Nicolas, forester in Bouillon and the radical left party. “The Monday before election Sunday, Raoul (Hedebouw) arrived. He announced to the executives and heads of lists that, regardless of the party’s score, we would not participate in power, at any level. I got angry. I refused to go on the debates on TV Lux. Then I quitresumes Alain Nicolas. The PTB had some good ideas and they still have some. Fortunately they are there to put the cursor of ideas on the left.”
“For them, since I left the party, I have been an outcast, a traitor and an opportunist”
”I was president of the PTB section of Jambes (Namur), and I became an activist during my last year, in 2019points out Karl Boulanger who, like many former PTB, joined the PS. I only gave 20 euros per month to the party. I knew a train attendant well who, she, retroceded 300 euros per month. Me, I made donations of 100 euros for the municipal campaign, then legislative, because throughout the year, the party appealed for donations. In 2019, the party cost me 600 euros. There are pressures on the financial side.”
Karl Boulanger no longer has any contact with his former comrades. “Ever since I left the party, I’ve been an outcast. I’ve been blocked on Facebook. I was harassed every day, I was a traitor and an opportunist. It is their mentality, which is totally sectarian. The simple fact of expressing doubts in a meeting is already frowned upon. They only live in their community. You’ll never see them go for a drink with a friend from the football team or a colleague. The PTB becomes their family. They don’t mix with the rest of society.”
“I contributed 500 euros per month”
If some activists contribute little, due to their limited means, simple members sometimes make an important contribution.. “I was an advisory member of the PTB between 2013 and 2015. I contributed 500 euros per month. It was voluntary. I would also make a larger payment, on occasion,” tells us Christian Panier, former judge from Namur, expelled in 2017 by the PTB who never digested his initiative to host, in 2015, the ex-wife of Marc Dutroux, Michelle Martin.
”I did not sign a written commitment. On the other hand, this is the case for activists who must commit to contributing and living on around 2000 euros per month of salary. And if they are not obliged to contribute, non-activist members are warmly invited to do so.continues Christian Panier. It was the party’s only way to break through.”
“The PTB made me feel guilty for spending money that belongs to me”
”I was a PTB activist. I joined the party because I lived in badly heated accommodation in the Sambrienne and they were the only ones who cared regarding me, took action and did not settle for the usual chatter. Afterwards, I always managed not to pay dues, because I had no income. But it was complicated not to give. There was pressure”, remembers Gemma Spataro, 67, former CPAS councilor for the city of Charleroi, expelled by the party in September 2021 for having spent the money for attendance fees. Indeed, the PTB requires that its representatives pay back all of its sums to the party. She remains deeply hurt.
”I was touched in my dignity, I don’t have a lot of means but I have always been honest. This story touched me and my children. Only once, in two and a half years, have I been late in returning my chips. I had however warned the party. This happened a little before Christmas 2020. I allowed myself to use part of my attendance fees, i.e. 487 euros in total. I wanted to give my granddaughter a present, as I had just become a grandmother…”
The party will demand his resignation from the CPAS council for this delay in reimbursement. She will refuse, which will ultimately lead to her exclusion.
Gemma Spataro is keen to insure it. “I repaid everything to the party. I would like to publish the proof, moreover, to relieve myself, to free myself from this label of thief (Editor’s note: she sent La Libre a certificate, signed by the director of the financial secretariat of the PTB, which certifies that she completely gave in to the party attendance fees, for a net amount of 1,884 euros in 2020). The PTB made me feel guilty for spending money that belongs to me. You are made to believe that you are an ugly person. I invested a lot of time in politics, but the party only brought me bad things.”
“I always share the ideas of the PTB”
Several of the former party members say they continue to share the party’s doctrine.
”I always share the ideas of the PTB, even if I have a problem with the inner workings. I hope that my departure will be a clicktells us Mustapha Al Masude, municipal councilor in Forest who left the party in 2019 to sit as an independent. I disagreed on how to operate. The party leadership said what to do and we had to follow. I stayed for less than a year and never had to contribute financially, other than the attendance fees that were to go to the party.”
”Party leaders are people with doctorates, big ideas, they know people’s psychology well. Some of the militants are blinded”adds Brahim Ziane, municipal councilor in Charleroi, who left the PTB in 2020, denouncing the lack of transparency on the use made of the amounts returned to the party, such as attendance fees.
