7 days
In the coming days, the suspended trainer will try to reconcile the four partners again. They all maintain that they still believe in Arizona, the name found for their team. But a big irritation arises on the side of the MR, the Engagés and the CD&V with regard to Vooruit. The three presidents, respectively Georges-Louis Bouchez, Maxime Prévot and Sammy Mahdi, made it known that they were exasperated by the method of their counterpart Conner Rousseau.
The trainer had to resign “due to Vooruit’s stubborn refusal to agree to enter into negotiations on the socio-economic note and the related budgetary tables”declares Maxime Prévot.
Conner Rousseau puts pressure on Bart De Wever: “Spare the super-rich and multinationals, we can’t ask that of the socialists”
Until now, the socialist has categorically refused to enter the conclave to discuss the points of the supernote presented by the N-VA which could be amended. The leader of Vooruit has determined the points on which he does not wish to compromise and he has made them a prerequisite for his participation in the discussions. “If the other parties around the table choose to spare the ultra-rich and multinationals at the expense of social security, that is their decision. But we can’t ask that of the socialists.” he clarified on Sunday evening.
“Conner had to leave the room.”
On Monday morning, the plenary meeting held before Bart De Wever’s royal audience once again ended in failure. “We said there that Arizona still had chances, but with different content”Conner Rousseau’s spokesperson tells us. “The others then declared that Conner should leave the room. And they decided the message to take to the King.”
On the other hand, the explanation is to say that Vooruit simply does not want Arizona. “Vooruit has refused to enter into negotiations for weeks. He doesn’t want to negotiate, so he puts himself out of the game.”we hear among the Christian Democrats. “The trainer had no choice but to resign. When one party simply doesn’t want to negotiate, they stop doing it.”
If Arizona fails, here are the alternative (but not very credible) coalitions that could replace it
“Conner Rousseau came back with his budget tables that didn’t hold up. It was unworkable,” laments a liberal source. “At the end of the meeting, Bart De Wever asked him to leave the room. The four of us have to continue. We can’t continue with you anymore.”
Swedish Bis?
Since then, speculation has been rife. The option that seems to be popular would be to replace Vooruit with the Open VLD, a sort of Swedish Bis with the addition of Engagés. The main concern expressed against this coalition would be its parliamentary fragility: it would only be based on 76 seats out of 150. But for the opposition to be able to do real blocking work, the left-wing parties would have to ally with the Vlaams Belang . Which – in theory – should not happen.
