PS is knocked out by a deadly cocktail of immobilism and scandal

By Wim Vermeersch
2 July 2017
Belgium Belgium
The Belgian left struggles under the weight of the latest scandal
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The Francophone Parti Socialiste (PS), once rock solid, seems to be on the verge of imploding. The party is crumbling in front of our eyes after one scandal too many.

The two, linguistically divided, socialist parties in Belgium, SP.A in Flanders and PS in Wallonia, are both in opposition at the federal level, where the right of centre Charles Michel government is in office, formed of a coalition of three Flemish parties (Flemish nationalists, Liberals and Christian Democrats) and one Francophone party (Liberals).

The Flemish Socialists (SP.A) have been excluded from power at all levels of Belgium’s multi-layered government since in 2014. Although in opposition at the federal level, until this week, the Francophone socialists (PS) remained part of coalitions governing Brussels and Wallonia. But now they have found themselves forced out of office, after being involved in a series of scandals that has seen them finally lose the confidence of their coalition partners.

The PS, for decades a strong and stable member of the European social-democratic family, is crumbling in front of our eyes. This is a very significant political fact. In the past, the party could always rely on about 30% of the French-speaking vote, but it now faces the prospect of catastrophic results in the 2018 local elections and a triple whammy in 2019’s federal, regional and European contests. The PS is going through the biggest crisis in its history.

Before explaining how PS got into this existential crisis, we must first look at her sister party, SP.A, in Flanders.

Status quo in Flanders

While the Francophone PS seems to be on the verge of imploding, the Flemish SP.A is managing to hang onto around 14% of voters’ support – the result it achieved in 2014. That is a historic low, but it’s important to remember that there are many small parties in Flanders, all competing in the shadow of one dominant force, the Flemish nationalist N-VA.

The polls reveal that while support for the N-VA has dropped a few percentage points and the Greens, like the SP.A in opposition, seem to be gaining slightly, all the other parties hover around their 2014 scores. The political landscape in Flanders may be fragmented but it is stable.

However, the emergence of the Greens as the main opposition party on the left, is SP.A’s main concern. The former are now considered to be the cosmopolitan ‘antidote’ to the conservative N-VA. In Antwerp, Flanders’ largest city and an important battle ground for the left in the local elections of 2018, the recently agreed alliance between SP.A and the Greens will be led by the latter, a clear indication of the balance of power between the two.

John Crombez became leader in 2015, vowing to turn SP.A into a ‘party of the street’ again and has made significant steps in this respect. SP.A is now asserting itself as the most ethical party. It is an important trump card. It is also the reason why SP.A is distancing itself from its Francophone sister party PS, which stumbles from scandal to scandal. Paradoxically, the crisis in which PS now finds itself is ‘God’s gift’ to SP.A, as it can now assert itself as ‘being different’.

The efforts of John Crombez to renew the party have not yet been rewarded in the polls. In the Flemish and federal parliament, young political talents have emerged, but they are not yet political heavyweights. Also, SP.A is often reminded about its long period in office. ‘We need to clean up the mess of the Socialists and tighten the belt’ or ‘Why did you not put forward these proposals when you were in office?’, are phrases that are often heard. It is hard to defend yourself against such blunt attacks.

To add to SP.A’s woes, the Belgian media are relishing the thought of opposition coming from inside the government, with three Flemish parties fishing in the same electoral pond – making it very hard for the ‘real’ opposition to make its voice heard above the internal argument. It is bad luck for the leftwing opposition, as we pointed out in an earlier contribution to the State of the Left.

Revolution in Francophone Belgium

This relative status quo in Flanders contrasts sharply with the political situation in Francophone Belgium. There, the political landscape on the left is changing rapidly.

The socialists (PS) are in free fall and the communists (PTB) on the rise. In opinion polls the PS has dropped from 31% in September 2014 to 20.3% in March 2017, while the communists move in the opposite direction: from 8.1% in September 2014 to 20.5% in March 2017. If these polls are confirmed at the ballot box, which seems only too likely given the latest series of scandals which have debilitated PS even further, PTB will become the leading party on the left. To make matters even more challenging for the PS the French speaking Greens are rising in the polls to more than 10%.

How should we explain this historic and dramatic downturn? PS is knocked out by a deadly cocktail of immobilism and scandals.

The Francophone PS used to be a rock-solid, mainstream social-democratic party, focused on gaining power and delivering for its working-class base in office. Yet today, the highest levels of the party have alienated themselves from the rank and file. The party remains a hierarchical bulwark in which ideological and personnel renewal is hard to bring about. PS has not settled in well to its role in opposition on the federal level. There it is led by former minister and now group leader in parliament, Laurette Onkelinx, and former prime minister and now party chairman, Elio Di Rupo. Needless to say they do not represent a credible future offer.

But there is more. PS does not seem able to overcome the demons from its past: the scandals that pop up time and time again.

Six months ago the PS’s Liege branch was involved in a scandal with a municipally controlled telecommunications enterprise called Publifin: party members received exorbitant attendance fees for meetings that did not take place. Although representatives of other parties were involved as well, these practices hurt the socialists the most. Recently, however, an even more outrageous case of personal political enrichment emerged at the Brussels-based NGO, Samusocial, where PS politicians earned vast sums, on top of their wages as political representatives, in an organisation for homeless people. Sickening.

This latest scandal shocked the nation. To this day, the PS hasn’t managed to contain the fallout from the outrage. The Socialist mayor of Brussels, Yvan Mayeur, was forced to resign. The Francophone Christian Democrats (cdH) resigned from the Brussels, French Community and Walloon coalition governments with the Socialists. And PS chairman, Elio Di Rupo, is under heavy pressure to step down.

It seems that the steep drop of PS in the polls will continue and that the Francophone communists of the PTB, taking full advantage of their claim that they do not form part of the political elite, will benefit from this political crisis.

The PTB is emerging a fresh new alternative on the left, its flamboyant leading light Raoul Hedebouw capturing attention as the newest kid on the block. Moreover, the PTB has deep roots in some local communities, as they provide cheap health care. Compared with the ‘power party’ PS, it positions itself as ‘the people’s party’: the communist MPs hand over their parliamentary wages to the party and live ‘like the working class’ on 1,700 euro per month. This contrasts heavily with the sordid schemes for personal enrichment on which so many in PS politicians of seem to spend their days.

In sum. For as long we can remember, the PS has been a strong and stable component of the the European social democratic family with their 30 plus percent elections results. However, the local 2018 elections and the federal, regional and European 2019 elections could show the implosion of yet another once great social-democratic party.