Fifty days to find a federal government that can succeed that of Sophie Wilmès and thus, finally take into account the result of the elections of May … 2019! This was the challenge accepted on July 20 by the two main political leaders of the country. For having gone too far, Bart De Wever and Paul Magnette remain doomed to succeed or to validate a bitter failure.
Mission impossible
The two men have indeed reneged on their main commitments by taking up this challenge. The coronavirus crisis and its social and economic implications have passed through this. This helps to justify today’s denials.
But are they doomed to succeed? The N-VA can only agree to govern with the PS if it obtains a new transfer of powers. The socialists were not particularly demanding but can live with a new reform of the state, if for all that they keep the hand on social measures. It is the essence of the deal that is on the table.
But the numbers are stubborn. A reform of the state rests first of all on a large majority that the two preformers cannot find. What is more, practically no article of the Constitution is subject to revision. This state reform remains a chimera for later, for much later. Bart De Wever pretends not to see him, Paul Magnette coaxes environmentalists with that. Impasse threatens.
Green or blue
The choice of the ally remains. The PS leans for environmentalists; this gives him a guarantee to his left and allows the hypothetical coalition not to lean too much to the right. Bonus for Paul Magnette: Georges-Louis Bouchez revere to be sidelined after 21 years of uninterrupted Liberal presence.
N-VA prefers blue, but only Flemish blue. The Nobody wants MR anymore, by Bart De Wever still resonates. Man is stubborn.
The ambition remains the divorce of the couple MR-Open VLD, still very solid. But this would allow the nationalists to cut short the arguments of Vlaams Belang who would not cease to reproach the N-VA for participating in a government of leftists! Another concern: this configuration would make the French-speaking presence once again very much in the minority, which the PS cannot accept with having criticized Charles Michel heavily.
Turn carousel!
Liberals and environmentalists have also just expressed their discontent to have to play in a bad remake of Turn roundabout!, the marriage game of TF1 from the 80’s.
They refuse to see each other as opposites; a little as if the preformers were betting on a drop in their claims. Will they be made to bear the responsibility for the political crisis?
There is one month left for the preformers to put a solution in place. On September 17, the House is supposed to vote the end of the Wilmès government.
Has the beginning of the end begun?
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