“There is a basic agreement between the PS, the PTB and Ecolo”
“The negotiations have ended, in substance and points of programmatic balance have been found”, a socialist source tells us. “There is a basic agreement between the PS, the PTB and Ecolo. We now have to go through the authorities.”
An MR-Défi coalition came first with 10 seats on October 13, ahead of the PS (9 seats) and Ecolo/Groen (8 seats), and the PTB (8 seats).
The forest local sections of the PS and Ecolo, however, quickly ruled out allying with the center-right cartel led by Cédric Pierre-De Permentier (MR), favoring negotiations with the PTB, with a view to constituting a left-wing majority. .
“67% of Forest voters voted left. We must hear this message and not discussing with the PTB would be a denial of democracy”underlined Charles Spapens (PS), the future mayor, in La Libre of October 22.
The socialists had tried, without success, to unseat the MR Challenge elected officials, to bring them into a majority with Ecolo. Without success.
In practice, the majority will only be formally put in place when the local sections of the PS, Ecolo and PTB have validated participation in this majority.
“Not discussing with the PTB would be a denial of democracy”: who is Charles Spapens, head of the PS list in Forest?
“But this should only be a formality. The opening of negotiations had already been voted almost unanimously“, repeats our socialist source.” Nothing now stands in the way of the definitive conclusion of the PS-Ecolo-PTB agreement. We were still waiting for a healthy reaction from the MR this weekend, to come back to us and prevent us from going to the end with the PTB. We thought Mons could have this effect, but it didn’t change anything.”
In addition to Forest, very advanced negotiations are also underway between the PS and the PTB in Molenbeek.
And discussions between the Socialist Party and the Radical Left Party have started in Schaerbeek.
The current mayor of Forest, Mariam el Hamidine, announced her departure from Ecolo to protest against the prospect of an alliance between Ecolo, the PS and the PTB.
While her party negotiates with the PTB, the mayor of Forest announces her departure from Écolo: “I do not find myself in the coalition that is taking shape”
But within the forest section of Ecolo, support for this coalition seems broad.
It now remains to be seen what the MR’s reaction will be.
An agreement between the PS and the PTB will have broader consequences at the national level, Georges-Louis Bouchez, president of the MR, announced in recent weeks.
As a reminder, the MR, the PS and the Engagés are negotiating together the formation of a Brussels government. But this French-speaking axis was put to the test by the municipal negotiations but also, again this Tuesday, by a disagreement on a proposed ordinance aimed at returning to the tenth number of mandates.
Crisis in sight in Brussels? An alliance between the socialists and the PTB in Schaerbeek or Forest would threaten the MR-PS axis in the Brussels government
