LSAP Faces New Challenges as they Transition to Opposition in Luxembourg Politics

“We played well, but we didn’t win the match,” summarizes Mars Di Bartolomeo. Widely re-elected, the socialist deputy is preparing to change his way of working, since the LSAP should return to the opposition, after 19 years in coalition with the CSV, then with the DP and the ecologists.

The opening of negotiations between the CSV and the DP in fact throws the LSAP onto the opposition benches. “We take note of the talks. And also the fact that we have not been contacted,” says Dan Biancalana, co-president of the party. If Luc Frieden, head of the CSV list, called his counterparts from the main parties, including Paulette Lenert, on Sunday evening, he would not have sought to establish contact with the socialists on Monday, when an alliance was theoretically possible. “Making contact would have been desirable,” squeaks the deputy mayor of Dudelange.

He says he is ready to reinvent himself. “We are opening a new page. For this, we have a united, motivated and dynamic team,” explains the man whom the LSAP ranks among the “winners” of the vote: “We have stopped the trend towards a drop in votes, which we have known for 20 years.”

“We can act better in the majority, but the opposition allows us to assert our positions more strongly. Because in coalition, you have to make compromises,” analyzes Mars Di Bartolomeo, an old hand in politics. Elected to the House since 1989, he does not intend to give up his mandate. “I was elected for five years and I do not have the freedom to say that I do not want the vote of the voters,” he analyzes.