“We saw a sort of clearing during the elections because the major sources of concern are still there”

In electoral terms, no. The shift already took place in the 2019 elections, when the cumulative score of the 6 traditional parties (liberals, socialists and social-Christians, Editor’s note) fell below the 50% mark for the first time, and quite significantly (45%). For the rest, the MR had already overtaken the PS in Wallonia in 2007. Certainly, the score of the Engagés is striking, but the PSC, of ​​which it is the heir, was frequently the second French-speaking party until the beginning of the 90s. There has always been a place in the center for an alternative between socialists and liberals. Belang’s success is not a first either: in 2004, it received 24% of the votes. The success of the PTB seems newer, even if in 1946, the communists were the third force in the House. What is really new, even spectacular, is the simultaneity of all these results.

The political center of gravity has clearly shifted towards the center-right in Belgium

What are the causes, according to you?

The basic hypothesis is a desire for change, as evidenced by the fall of the outgoing Prime Minister’s party, the Open VLD. There is a sort of clearing. The parties that have been most successful are those that have adopted clear or new positions. Vlaams Belang promises change on immigration and security; the N-VA claims to get the federal state out of the rut of deficits and get Flanders out of the harmful effects of “Walloon backwardness”; the president of the MR promised to put an end to the domination of the “50 shades of the left”; The Engagés presented a program and renewed candidates… A good part of the voters are asking for change because the major sources of concern are still there: the costs of energy and real estate, the low incomes which lead to giving up on see a doctor, drugs in Brussels and Antwerp, the persistence of a significant number of asylum requests, social benefits which some consider benefit a public that does not deserve them, the difficulty of finding a job stable…

Open VLD will have to reinvent itself from a blank sheet

This impression of a shift also comes from the fact that Wallonia has moved to the right, like the rest of Europe, even though it was dominated by the left for decades.

It is too early to say whether the Walloon exception has disappeared. In any case, the PS is no longer hegemonic. And the trend is structural. There was a warning signal in the 2018 provincial elections. Since this election, the PS has fluctuated between 23 and 26% in Wallonia. With such a score, you are a strong, but more dominant party.

Why this erosion?

There is a convergence of factors. First, a sociological evolution marked by individualism: the PS can no longer count on the loyalty of voters who were registered, as a family, in the organizations of the socialist pillar. Then, the left electorate has before it a political offer which has diversified, with the PTB and Écolo. Part of the social base of the PS is also occasionally tempted by a vote to the right or the extreme right, in reaction to phenomena that it considers shocking such as “welfare”, insecurity or the contestation of traditional values . We understand that Paul Magnette (president of the PS) announced a refoundation of the PS using open debates, without taboos, a bit like the process of transformation of the CDH into Engagés.

Specifically, do you think that the success of Les Engagés will be structural?

The originality of the approach must be underlined. All the parties that matter in Belgium are based on a structuring divide in political life, on a large-scale issue on which they rely and base their system of values. Even the CDH, despite its desire to break with the image of an essentially Christian party, remained a centrist party of personalist inspiration. There remains something of the CDH in Les Engagés. But the Engagés’ program was built in contact with citizens, with great freedom of speech, and instead of being composed of syntheses between right and left, it presents fairly clear-cut proposals, sometimes from the right, sometimes from the left. As a result, Les Engagés can claim to have built themselves beyond divisions. Their approach was a success and their calmer communication than that of the MR helped them. But, for them, the moment of truth will be the 2029 election.

The 20% Committed, from fantasy to reality: the reasons for a historic victory

Isn’t the success of the Engagés based on the personality of President Maxime Prévot?

I think it comes first of all from collective lucidity. We cannot keep alive a party founded on an aging Catholic electorate. Joëlle Milquet (former president of the CDH) was already aware of this 25 years ago. But the transformation of the CDH had not gone far enough. The recruitment of a ULB professor who claims to be a freethinker (Yves Coppieters, Editor’s note)it is a step that Les Engagés have taken, unlike the CDH.

Same question for the liberals: isn’t the success of the MR mainly due to the disruptive communication of its president, Georges-Louis Bouchez, who behaves as if Belgium had a majority voting system?

It’s true that he adopted a fairly new tone in the French-speaking world. But, for me, the success of the MR is also due to a contextual effect: in Wallonia, the impression that the PS exercises hegemony persists in people’s minds. By playing the break with the Socialist Party, which has spent only one legislature in opposition since 1988, both at the Walloon level and at the federal level, the MR has reached the fringes of the population who consider that their problems have not been resolved. But in 5 years, this talk of rupture will no longer make sense. Perhaps even the break will be in relation to the MR/Engagés duo.

The deeper reasons for the MR’s electoral triumph

“It is much too early to say that Belgium has definitively moved to the right”

What is your view on the rise of the PTB and Vlaams Belang in municipal majorities?

For Belang, this is worrying. Is it intended to be sustainable? We would tend to say “yes”. Belang’s audience has been strong for a long time in Ninove (where it has an absolute majority) and in other municipalities. As for what his rise to power will bring, it is unpredictable. The problem for Belang is that part of its program is inapplicable in law. He will face appeals before the Constitutional Court or the Council of State. Will this break his wings because he won’t be able to keep his promises? Or will this allow him to further denounce the system by saying that the laws and judges prevent him from carrying out the will of voters? We don’t know anything about it. I would be less worried about the PTB. This Marxist party has a program of rupture on a global scale, in relation to European standards and capitalism. But at the local level, he won’t be able to do anything other than push for more progressive policies. I don’t see why this would be a problem.

How the municipal elections marked a major turning point for Belgian politics

This could normalize the idea that a PS-Eco-PTB coalition in 5 years at the regional level…

This is perhaps the PTB’s strategy: “let’s show that at the municipal level, things are going well”. The door is perhaps open for a grand left-wing coalition which, at the end of 5 years of a center-right legislature in Wallonia, would satisfy a new desire for alternation. It is far too early to say that Belgium has definitively moved to the right.