The cancellation of the elections is what the three men wanted: “I asked for it from the start. Everyone laughed but my argument was concrete,” comments Philippe Boïketé. Now, there is a period of 8 days to appeal the decision of the jurisdictional college (composed of nine members appointed by parliament, editor’s note) before the Council of State. The latter must decide within 60 days. If the Council of State confirms the decision or if no appeal is filed, the elections must be reorganized within 50 days.”
“It’s been 20 years since I denounced the practices of Emir Kir (who won the absolute majority in the municipal council on the evening of October 13), this time it succeeded, welcomes Ahmed Mouhssin (Ecolo). In the case of proxies, it was estimated that around 350 of them were contentious. To have the result of an election annulled, the problematic element must be able to affect the distribution of seats, which is the case with more than 300 disputed votes.”
“Saint-Josse and the laboratory of bad electoral governance”: Ecolo PS and Team Ahidar launch an appeal and a complaint for fraud
The judicial panel not convinced by Emir Kir’s defense
The environmentalist is not worried if the outgoing mayor goes to appeal. “The Mayor’s list has already been able to defend itself before the jurisdictional panel. Obviously that was not convincing. I don’t see what new arguments could be put forward in their defense.”
On the side of the Fouad Ahidar team, Ibrahim Dankuş says “happy that the jurisdictional college has ruled in favor of us. It’s a victory for democracy, and we invite Tenooders to truly make their voices heard.” The stakes are all the more important for the political party with the purple banner: it was only 54 votes short of winning a seat on the council.
So everything has to be redone: “we went back to the countryside“, conclude those who won their case.
As a reminder: on the evening of October 13 in the smallest municipality in Belgium, the list of outgoing mayor Emir Kir had obtained 50.5% of the votes and 17 seats out of the 29 on the council. The PS was placed in second position with 19.9% followed by Ecolo-Groen (15.5%). These last two groups were immediately excluded from a potential alliance with the mayor’s list which qualified them as “traitors”. Emir Kir had been excluded from the PS in 2020 and was therefore playing big in this first election without the socialist banner.
Saint-Josse: Emir Kir wins his bet without the PS and wins the absolute majority
Despite his absolute majority won in October, the mayor turned more towards the Engagés (9% and one seat) to negotiate a potential coalition.
Note that another file concerning the elections in Saint-Josse is still in progress. Indeed, Philippe Boïketé also filed a complaint with the Brussels public prosecutor’s office for electoral fraud, which could lead to criminal proceedings. The Saint-Josse 2024 saga is therefore far from over as Emir Kir’s list appears to validate the alderman’s candidacies next week.
The mayor’s list has not yet commented on the college’s decision.
In 2000, the jurisdictional college took a comparable decision for Molenbeek. An appeal was then lodged with the Council of State which finally validated the result of the vote, thus preventing Molenbeek residents from having to go to the polls once again.
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