2023-12-18 11:44:00
“We are not in Moscow, we are not in North Korea”
Saturday morning, Rachid Madrane left the room, unhappy with the place reserved for him on the lists and castigating the “procedures” which led to their creation. “The distribution of places on the lists was done between ourselves” following having “gathered six people in a meal which lasted until the early hours”, he said to the activists. “We are not in Moscow, we are not in North Korea,” he added.
“We are not in North Korea!”: it is war in the Brussels PS, Rachid Madrane gives up being a candidate in the elections
Is Rachid Madrane’s discontent isolated? Socialist activists and elected officials were quite discreet this Monday morning. According to information from La Libre, Rachid Madrane was however imitated a few minutes later by another Brussels MP. “Yes, I left a little following Rachid Madrane, in support of him, but also because I was sad for my party. We must respect the internal democracy of the Brussels PS. For the rest, Rachid said everything…”, tells us Véronique Jamoulle, Brussels MP.
“Many people support Rachid. I have received lots of messages from friends who have always voted socialist in the regional elections and who tell me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t anymore.” The recent way of managing things has caused damage”, continues the Uccle MP. “Philippe Moureaux was sometimes criticized for being a great dictator, but at least he respected the rules… We designated the head of the list in the office, we also designated the members of a commission of wise men who constituted the lists following a call for applications. Here, we had nothing, no call for applications, no meeting of the party office to form a committee of wise people. The list was presented to us at the congress without it even going to the party office.”
The pairing procedure, desired by the president of the PS Paul Magnette and the national office, however changed the situation, posing new difficulties. “In general it is a list committee (committee of wise men) which makes a global proposal for the complete list, except the heads of the list which are traditionally proposed by the presidency of the federation”, concedes a fine connoisseur of the Brussels PS. “But given the unprecedented nature of this year, it was up to the presidency of the Brussels federation to propose the first and second of the lists.”
These lists, it should be noted, were approved by the activists almost unanimously, minus 3 “no” and 2 abstentions.
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Rachid Madrane had a slightly different vision from Ahmed Laaouej, in relation to participation or communitarianism.”
The maneuver, however, caused damage, reviving the internal quarrels of the Brussels PS. The meal for six mentioned by Rachid Madrane brought together Ahmed Laaouej, Rudi Vervoort, Caroline Désir, Ridouane Chahid, Philippe Close and Fadila Laanan. Their common point: having supported Ahmed Laaouej for the presidency of the Brussels federation in 2019.
Véronique Jamoulle was in the camp opposite. “Rachid lost very narrowly. Half of the activists in Brussels supported his project, but there, we don’t take it into account. However, he had a slightly different vision from Ahmed Laaouej, in relation to participation or communitarianism. Ahmed is a person of power. But hey, there are some in all parties…”
Véronique Jamoulle also stood out in June when the ban on slaughter without stunning was proposed. The MP, like Julien Uyttendaele, had rejected Ahmed Laaouej’s voting instructions, voting in favor of the ban.
Julien Uyttendaele rejects the PS’s voting instructions on ritual slaughter in Brussels: “This question has never been discussed internally”
”I am a loyal person. If this point had been in the program, if it had been discussed at the congress, I might have agreed to vote once morest my conviction, in the name of a collegial decision. But there was none of that, only an injunction that came from above,” continues Véronique Jamoulle, who assures her: she will not be, like Rachid Madrane, a candidate in the 2024 elections.
“I no longer want to condone certain things”
”I won’t be on the lists but in any case, they won’t offer it to me because I’m not in the good books. Plus, I’ll be 65 in February. My decision was already made before the conference. However, I note that many of those who leave before retirement are women. Personally, I no longer want to condone certain things. I am going to return to the association, as a volunteer. It takes a bit of courage but I’m not a hero either. For others, it’s more complicated. This Saturday, at the congress, I saw people very uncomfortable.”
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