October 28, 2020
17:04
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The N-VA makes a drifting impression. As if the party does not take the risk of corona seriously. And Open VLD likes to push the N-VA a little deeper into the canal.
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Gentle healers make smelly wounds. This criticism has been thrown at the N-VA, after Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) waved away a tightening of the measures in Flanders in ‘De seventh day’. “I’m not going to start extinguishing my house now, because maybe a fire will break out next week,” Jambon said at the time.
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The Flemish house was indeed on fire, even though it had been burning in the south of the country for ten days longer.
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Virologist Marc Van Ranst accused the Prime Minister of promptly denying the sunlight. The Flemish house was indeed on fire, even though it had been burning in the south of the country for ten days longer. Jambon’s fire metaphor has now become the object of ridicule.
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Jambon has also been running after the facts since Sunday. On Tuesday he was forced to announce stricter measures. Hospitals in Flanders are also at risk of not being able to survive.
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Two sizes, two weights
This was also criticized, because the stricter measures only take effect from Friday. The fact that time is needed to regulate things legally and to allow them to proceed in an orderly manner, as Flemish minister Hilde Crevits (CD&V) also argued, was dismissed as nonsense. There was not a minute to lose.
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It’s copy-paste 2010, when the Di Rupo government did everything right and we couldn’t do anything right.
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The N-VA accuses the media of using two measures and two weights. When the De Croo government also allowed a few days to pass in order for the closure of the catering industry to proceed in an orderly fashion, that was no problem. On the contrary, it was seen as good governance, especially when compared to the helpless decisions of the Wilmès government. But when De Croo closed the catering industry, the situation was not as dire as it is now.
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Some Open VLD mayors, with Gwendolyn Rutten in a pioneering role, even announced that they would take matters into their own hands and let the stricter measures take effect immediately. As if Open VLD was not part of the Flemish government, the liberal mayors fired at the N-VA once again from the hip. ‘For this, standard communication was even sent out from Open VLD’, it sounds bitterly at the N-VA. While the liberals point out that non-liberal mayors also shifted up a gear locally.
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At the N-VA they have the feeling that 2010 is all over, when the N-VA was also federally parked on the sidelines. “It is copy-paste 2010, when the Di Rupo government did everything right and we couldn’t do anything right,” says a top executive. “But for once, I can say truthfully, there are more pressing and more important concerns.”
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Prevent lockdown
In this second wave, the Flemish nationalists especially want to avoid a repetition of the lockdown of the schools and the economy, because then the social cost would become enormous. But in that war they lose battle after battle. For example, Flemish Minister of Education Ben Weyts had to retrace his steps, even though he was determined to keep schools as open as possible.
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It has become a struggle, in which the N-VA’ers are dismissed as Trumpian covid deniers.
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It has become a struggle, in which the N-VA’ers are dismissed as Trumpian covid deniers, even if it is not said in so many words. And it must be said: the N-VA also finds it difficult to find the right rhythm in dancing on one leg as a Flemish policy party and on the other leg as a federal opposition party.
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When De Wever and party colleague Zuhal Demir announced that they were not told that only the catering industry had to close the doors after all, a compromise that Jambon had accepted in the Consultation Committee, they scored with the affected catering industry, but lost to credibility. Because the closure of the catering industry soon turned out to be too little too late.
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