Due to the administrative agreement between the social-liberal city list Voor Gent and Groen, N-VA is still missing out in Ghent. “This is not the end, on the contrary,” responds N-VA party leader Anneleen Van Bossuyt. “How we have been treated only makes us stronger.”
“I, we, would have liked to put our shoulders to the wheel of an innovative project for Ghent,” Van Bossuyt writes on social media. “But I promise you: this is not the end. On the contrary. What has happened in recent weeks, how we have been treated, the support you have given us and are giving us, only makes us stronger and even more convinced to go all the way.” (Read more under the Facebook post)
“Never felt so much hate”
N-VA was preferred by Voor Gent’s negotiators after Groen was unable to unconditionally accept a basic memorandum. The party eventually reached an agreement, which was later undermined by the members of Vooruit. The right of initiative shifted to Groen, which after mediation was able to finalize an agreement that was approved by the member conferences. This despite a week of street protests that – in addition to a playful and family character – had initially been fairly bitter. Van Bossuyt was booed at the time as he left the town hall. “I have never felt so much hatred, a word that I detest, in Ghent,” she says.
The negotiation exercise that Van Bossuyt completed with the negotiators of Open VLD and Vooruit was not in vain, Van Bossuyt believes. “Thanks to the N-VA, the agreement that has now unfortunately been reached with Groen is more reasonable than it would otherwise have been,” she believes. “The only question that remains is whether that party is effectively able to let go of its polarizing mobility policy, reduce the debt burden, reduce regulation and fully support the police,” she wonders.
Singing Kumbaya
In ‘The Morning’ on Radio 1, Van Bossuyt stated that she had been “silent for a long time” because she wanted to “keep the opportunities for N-VA in the Ghent city council intact”. “I believed to the end that serenity would trump intimidation, that pragmatics would trump hysteria,” she said. “Ghent does not belong to the left-wing community,” he said. “We will defend this with fervor from the opposition benches for the next six years.”
Van Bossuyt has strong doubts that the new city council will do better than the previous one, which consists of the same parties. “I have my reservations about the fact that people who have made each other’s lives miserable for six years can now suddenly sing Kumbaya around the campfire.”
