Open Vld gradually seems to be on the verge of death. National figureheads such as Gwendolyn Rutten and Patrick Dewael are now also openly turning their backs on the party. They feel brutally passed over.
Saturday, at 2.25 pm, Rutten receives a phone call from chairman Tom Ongena. The conversation lasts eight minutes, so Ongena’s question is fairly short. Suppose, purely hypothetically, that the party were to ask Rutten to replace Vincent Van Quickenborne as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, would she say yes?
Rutten answers in the affirmative, but Ongena emphasizes once again that he has not asked an official question – that it is not even certain that there will still be a government in the evening, as it has yet to meet about the errors in Abdesalem Lassoued’s file.
Ongena himself is leaving for Limburg, where the party leaders for 2024 will be appointed. In the wings he talks to people such as Flemish minister Lydia Peeters and Limburg figurehead Patrick Dewael. They emphasize that it is essential that a strong deputy prime minister is appointed. Ongena reassures them: they will certainly choose someone with a lot of experience.
In the meantime, the party leadership has had another candidate in mind since Friday: the well-known Antwerp criminal lawyer Kris Luyckx. He previously stood up for the Liberals and was political secretary of the party for a while. But Luyckx hesitated and ultimately turned down the offer on Sunday morning.
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That Sunday, Rutten hears nothing more from the party leadership. Like many other veterans of the party, she is not involved in the decision that has to be made. It is Van Quickenborne, Bart Somers, Ongena and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo who make the decisions.
When journalists send her messages around 2 p.m. asking if she is on her way to the king, she knows: someone has been identified and it is not me. At a quarter to three, a message arrives from De Croo: he will call her shortly. When he does that half an hour later, he can only confirm what Rutten already knows. She misses the ministership.
Rutten is deeply disappointed that she has not been asked to think about the strategy to be followed and does not appear to be a serious discussion partner for the party leadership. Especially because it is not the first time that the clan around De Croo has put her in the basket. She almost immediately announced her retirement from national politics on Facebook.
Not much later, Dewael sends a message in the WhatsApp group of the parliamentary faction: “I am considering sitting as an independent liberal Member of Parliament for the last months of my mandate.” For the time being, Rutten appears to be planning to end his term of office under the blue flag. But that is not entirely certain. Dewael shrouds himself in silence.
At Open Vld the low point seems to have been reached. The sudden resignation of chairman Egbert Lachaert in June already painfully exposed the malaise among the liberals. Less than six months later, the party is already rolling over the paving stones fighting.
Grafdelvers
The Liberal party office meets on Monday morning with tense nerves. Upon arrival, Flemish Member of Parliament Maurits Vande Reyde and Minister Lydia Peeters, among others, expressed their dissatisfaction to the assembled press. This is certainly unusual for Peeters, she is by no means known as someone who quickly seeks attention.
Flemish Member of Parliament Jean-Jacques De Gucht also twists the knife into the wound: he shares a photo of a book on Instagram entitled The gravediggers.
During the party office, Ongena is eventually given the assignment to put together the pieces. But, he emphasizes: he also receives support in his choice of Paul Van Tigchelt as the new minister. And he is asked to continue to innovate the party. Ongena sees Van Tigchelt as part of that innovation. The Liberals are doing very poorly electorally in Antwerp city. The hope is that Van Tigchelt can emerge as a vote-getter.
The party headquarters are reacting with anger to the demarche of Rutten, Dewael and their supporters. The choice of minister was made as it has always been made in recent years, it sounds, including during Rutten’s presidency. Several people were asked in advance – Rutten, but also Egbert Lachaert and State Secretary Alexia Bertrand.
Called ‘dropouts’
As soon as the decision was made on Sunday and before the palace was informed that Van Tigchelt would become the new minister, the party leadership said it called the ‘defections’.
Even outside the party leadership, Rutten’s fierce reaction is also regarded as strange. Lachaert in particular has a lot to teach the party office: personal disappointments are no reason to damage the party. “There is room for a strong liberal party in Flanders, but then we will have to work together and pull together. Everyone has aspirations, and I have reasons to be hurt too. Anyone can encounter that in their career.”
What should happen next? Within Open Vld there is now open talk about a Volksunie scenario in which the party implodes before the elections. The list building is in full swing. Once it becomes clear which ‘stated blue bodies’ are missing an eligible seat, given the poor polls there are still only a handful, the party will come under high tension, it is said.
The rebellion of Rutten and Dewael this weekend shows how little loyalty even figureheads still have towards the moribund Open Vld brand.
