Mirror, mirror on the wall
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who will gain most political power of all? As the election campaign nears its nervous end, the left wing parties warn for a right wing austerity government while the right wing parties warn for a left wing tax government. The most educated guess in the Belgian political world however, is that after the elections of this Sunday a mirror government will emerge: a government with the same political parties that are already in the regional governments of Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia.
- First of all, the situation in the French speaking part of the country will be easier to analyze than in Flanders. Only four parties compete with each other, not seven as in Flanders and it is expected the results will be clear: the liberal party (MR) will lose, while the socialist party (PS) and the Greens (Ecolo) will win. The fourth party, the Christian-democrats will probably stay the little sister of French speaking Belgium.
- Socialists, Greens and Christian-democrats are all ready together in the Brussels and Walloon governments. So the election result will be seen as a mandate to make the same coalition on the federal level. It is called ‘the olive tree’.
- As the Flemish situation is more complicated and will be more difficult to analyze, there will be a temptation to make the same olive tree in order to not complicate things even more. The only problem is that the N-VA (who are short term confederalists, but long term separatists) will be the big winner of the elections, if we may believe the polls.
- Two forces could draw the four of them in the federal government. The first one is that in Flanders the N-VA, the socialists and the Christian-democrats already work together in the Flemish regional government. The second one is that the French speaking Greens will want their Flemish partners with them in the government, to make the green case stronger.
- So there you have it: an olive tree of socialists, greens and christen-democrats, with a little help from the N-VA. In this same scenario, the N-VA, will not be too eager to join the government. It wants a big split up of Belgium and it’s social-economical policy is rather right wing. But in 2007 it supported the government without joining it, as long as there was no agreement on a major state reform. This could very well happen again. In that case the president of the French speaking socialists, Elio Di Rupo, could become prime minister. From the opposition, the N-VA will work hard with the government on a state reform.
- And last but not least: the next four years will not be a walk in the park. In 2015 Belgium needs to execute an austerity program of 22 billion euro. It is impossible to do this if the federal and regional governments argue all the time. Choosing the same political parties for all the governments (that is: the same on the Flemish side and the same on the French speaking side) could be a way to downsize that risk.
But, then again, even an educated guess stays a guess. The voters will decide Sunday. If, just to say one thing, the Flemish Christian-democrats will suffer as badly as the Dutch Christian-democrats of Jan-Peter Balkenende earlier this week, even the mirror-coalition will become impossible.
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