Zakia Khattabi: “Ecolo will not win by simply doing differently than Jean-Marc Nollet”

There are several reasons. The ones that interest me are the ones I have control over, the internal elements. Today, I have a lot of questions, intuitions, but not many answers. I am working on it, but we must do it collectively. Clearly, we have not convinced.

You were expecting a such defeat?

I expected it not to be as good as in 2019. But now, with barely two MPs in the House, it is worse than anything we have ever experienced… Something has clearly escaped us. We need to take the time to analyse and not stop at the froth. The campaign was tough, we paid the price in Brussels for an anti-Good Move campaign. There is also an unfavourable context for the Greens at European level. Despite this, if we had convinced, the defeat would have been less violent. If we had been perfect in our (governmental) participations, we could have cushioned the shock. Saying that is the opposite of irresponsibility. I want to work on this, on our levers, to do better tomorrow.

After the electoral debacle, Ecolo must reorganize at a forced pace

What explains the difference with 2019?

In 2019, there was a context favorable to ecology, which is no longer there. Today we are talking about security, etc. But besides that, we also lost an electorate that we had won. Personally, I envy all the editorialists, political analysts, or my colleagues who today know what was or was not…

There is a gap between Ecolo, which is now clearly positioned on the left, and these voters that you had won back from the centre and the centre-right in 2019.

In 2019, we won over, at the MR, the social liberals concerned about welcoming migrants and banning home visits. They did not vote for our economic program. That is why we must take the time to analyze. I read some colleagues in the press who say: we must return to Jean-Michel Javaux’s line…

It won’t be enough to refocus to win?

No, I do not think so. One element of our defeat is: he who hugs too much hugs badly. We have been present on many subjects, but we have not prioritized our fundamentals enough, environmental issues. Political ecology is not just about the environment. It is a global system. But there is a permanent tension between the need for urgency to respond to this crisis, and the need not to rush people to have them with us. Beyond the electoral aspect, there is a real question: is ecology today reformism or radicalism?

You can’t decide between them?

We did one once, we won, we did the other once and we lost. And vice versa. That’s why I’m wondering. We have to make a choice and then assume the consequences, if any. But to be credible in the response we provide to the environmental crisis, we must continue to carry out a radical project, which is what I did with Patrick [Dupriez].

Are you planning to run for the co-presidency?

No, I never look back.

There was this internal decision to bring forward the election for the co-presidency to July. This upset quite a few people at Ecolo…

I was one of those who did not support this decision. The defeat is such that I do not imagine that we can put something on the table in three weeks. Bitterness and anger are not good advisers. We must fundamentally reflect on the future of political ecology.

Ecolo will appoint a new co-president on July 13, candidates must make themselves known by June 30

Would Samuel Cogolati and Marie Lecocq form a good duo for the co-presidency? Marie-Colline Leroy and Gilles Van den Burre are also mentioned…

I will not comment on the names, I will look at the projects. Among the names circulating, we have a regional secretary who led the campaign in Brussels (Marie Lecocq), a group leader in the Chamber who carried the line in the majority (Gilles Van den Burre), a secretary of state (Marie-Colline Leroy) and one of the most visible (former) deputies (Samuel Cogolati). None of these candidates, realizing that the line was not the right one, had the courage to say stop. We are all responsible for the defeat, even if some are more so than others. But no one, among us, wanted to make the revolution.

Aren’t these the candidates for the break?

All four of them might be, or they might not be. But the mistake is to think that things will be resolved by resolving our internal problems. Eco-friendly will not win by simply doing differently than Jean-Marc [Nollet]. That won’t be enough. We will win by gaining height, and because we will have taken stock of what has changed in society in five years.