In his eyes, the Communist Party, under the pretext that it is a national party, is engaged in a political calculation to win a few votes in Flanders. Following the debate on the VRT between the presidents of the MR and the Vlaams Belang, Georges-Louis Bouchez and Tom Van Grieken, the French-speaking parties undertook to modernize the latest version of the Charter, which dates back to 2002. The document was submitted for signature to the PTB, which did not wish to join the other French-speaking parties. The PTB-PVdA presents itself as a national party with elected representatives under the same banner in the north and south of the country and considers that it cannot refuse to participate in a debate in Flanders where the far right is present. Representatives of the VB are regularly invited to the Flemish media and, according to the PTB, refusing to mix with them would not change anything, on the contrary: the debate will take place anyway. As for the French-speaking media, the PTB respects the sanitary cordon.
“The PTB cannot take the pretext that it is a national party to refuse to respect the sanitary cordon. It must choose its camp. We cannot have a variable geometry attitude depending on whether we are in Flanders or in the space Wallonia-Brussels. By debating with the extreme right, the PTB accepts to trivialize it and sets it up as a legitimate interlocutor in the Belgian political field. This is disastrous because we see that, wherever the cordon sanitaire “is not respected, the far right is progressing, whether in France or in Flanders. By making this choice, the PTB takes on a share of the responsibility in this progress and is part of a form of indirect complicity”, underlined Mr. Laaouej.
“I denounce the ambiguity of the PTB. I think it is a form of cynicism and electoral calculation to win a few votes in Flanders,” added the socialist deputy. “The Vlaams Belang cannot be considered a party similar to the others. It is outside the scope of democracy.”
According to Laaouej, this is not the first time that the PTB in the House has shown ambiguity on the issue of human rights, whether on the fate reserved by China for the Uyghur minority or more recently regarding Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. “This party seems to have difficulty overcoming a radical attachment to a certain ideology when human rights are at stake.”
The new Charter for Democracy should be presented on Saturday. On the same day, a silent march will take place in Schaerbeek to commemorate the Isnasni family, several of whose members were murdered by a Vlaams Blok sympathizer 20 years ago, recalled Mr Laaouej.