This is why I rather welcome this idea of propelling party presidents into government because I think that this would ensure better federal cohesion. By being inside rather than outside, those who negotiated the government agreement would in principle bear much more responsibility for it and better defend its interests. Georges-Louis Bouchez, the author of this proposal, is perhaps the best illustration of this phenomenon since he himself strongly undermined the Vivaldi coalition by criticizing from the outside certain decisions which had nevertheless been taken with his approval , or in any case with the approval of his party.
Party presidents soon also ministers? “Yes, it is better that the real decision-makers are around the table”, believes Marc Uyttendaele
So what reservations do you have?
What deeply bothers me is the idea that someone who becomes Vice-Prime can remain party president at the same time. This accumulation seems fundamentally problematic to me. The party president must look after the interests of his party, the Vice-Prime those of the government (even if, de facto, he also represents his party within the government). It is therefore certainly not necessary to link the two functions. In fact, however, we know very well that if party presidents become ministers and give up the helm of their party, there is a high probability that they will be replaced by a sort of puppet, i.e. by someone who manages the house administratively but who has little or no power. Remember the case of Olivier Chastel at the MR or Thierry Giet at the PS. They both held the presidency of their party at one point, but everyone knew that the real boss was Charles Michel for the first and Elio Di Rupo for the second.
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Following your reasoning, isn’t it better then to fully embrace the idea of combining the two functions?
No, I don’t believe it because if we open the door to this kind of reasoning, it’s endless. To put it as a joke, we could then arrive at the reasoning that because Belgium is a particracy, we can abolish parliament since it has little power in practice.
In the same vein, I find that the very principle of “prevented” mayors in Belgium is in itself a problem. I am therefore convinced that we must not legitimize this partisan logic even more by adapting realities to the unofficial logic already at work… If only to maintain a certain democratic hygiene in this country.
