Open Vld dient wetsvoorstel in voor een federale kieskring: “We kunnen niet blijven doorgaan in een splitsingslogica”

26 comments

  2. What is that weird sentation called that you feel when you finally agree with the VLD on somethig?

  3. I wonder how the votes are going to be counted. “One person, one vote”, or weighted like they currently are on a federal level.

  6. How does this work in practice? If 20/150 seats go to a “Federal electoral region” does this mean parties need to make a separate list for candidates to vote into those seats (different from the provincial lists we use now)? Or are those seats filled through the provincial list? Meaning we’ll need to vote an extra time during federal elections.

  8. “Het is nu de vraag of het Open Vld-voorstel ook de vereiste tweederdemeerderheid haalt. Vlaams Belang, N-VA en CD&V hebben er zich al tegen gekant, waardoor er aan Vlaamse kant al geen meerderheid voor bestaat.”

    Teleurstellend.

  9. >*Vlaams Belang, N-VA en CD&V hebben er zich al tegen gekant, waardoor er aan Vlaamse kant al geen meerderheid voor bestaat.*

    Why, bc Walloon bashing may be less profitable for them, then?

    The liberals may strike a chord here. Be done with those feudal little circumscriptions, make it 150/150 seats, all the way.

  10. Redelijk doorzichtig van OVLD. Zijzelf halen geen stemmen meer in Vlaanderen maar zien dat Bouchez populair is, hopen daardoor stemmen te winnen in Vlaanderen. Ze denken toch niet dat eenmaal GLB ziet dat hij het zonder hun kan, hij ze niet gaat laten vallen als een baksteen?

  12. There’s nothing I would want more than that, but unfortunately the political system and political attitude of the population is too far gone after decades of regionalism. It’s beyond repair.

    Such a measure would go a long way to fix the oppositional lens that’s become a feature of our democratic system, but at the same time is currently prevented by this same oppositional lens. (see, VB, NVA, Défi,…) People have been brainwashed by decades of Walloon/Flemish-bashing.

    At this point I just hope we get absorbed into a federalized EU ASAP so that our national politics can become a weird but harmless folklore rather than actually mattering.

  13. Error from the article: a majority in both linguistic groups isn’t required, because it is a modification of the Constitution. A two thirds majority of the votes cast is required, as well as a quorum of 2/3 of the total Members (at least 100 Members out of 150 need to be present. Whatever that number is, two thirds of them need to vote in favor).

    Not that it makes a big difference, because VB, NV-A and CD&V have 54 seats total. If all 150 Members are present, the modification to the Constitution won’t get adopted because those 3 parties have more than one third of the seats. The only way this modification could get adopted is if most Members of those 3 parties are absent while most Members of all other parties are present. Unlikely.

  14. Wow all those people here in favor of this, Wallonia is doing it worse in everything, look al all those [/mapporn](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/) maps: less wealthy, more unemployment, very very high government debt, less industries, bad infrastructure (you guys never drove on a wallonial highway? If you crash in a guardrail you will just fly through it cuz its so rusty and broken, scary), + 2 governments for the gemeenschap en gewest while Flanders is doing it with one, etc etc

    And I didnt even mention the billions of transfers from north to south every year and they still can make it work.

    *De forse verslechtering van de regionale financiën liet zich ook zien in de schuldcijfers, Eveneens afgezet tegenover de totale ontvangsten, bedroeg de bruto-schuld in 2020 in Vlaanderen 51,3%, in Wallonië 111,5% en in Brussel 179,9%.*
    (Terwijl 60% van het bbp de bedoeling was) [bron](https://www.kbc.com/nl/economics/publicaties/regionale-overheidsfinanci%C3%ABn-in-belgie-op-onhoudbaar-pad.html)

    It’s easy to spend the money of someone else.

    *Vlaanderen en Brussel hebben in 2019 respectievelijk 6,2 miljard euro en 900 miljoen euro bijgedragen aan de intergewestelijke overdrachten of ‘transfers’. Wallonië heeft dat jaar 7,1 miljard euro ontvangen.* [bron](https://www.despecialist.eu/nl/nieuws/vlaanderen-en-brussel-bijdragers-transfers-wallonie-ontvanger-omvang-transfers-daalt.html)

    Do you know what Flanders could do with all that money every year? Rebuild our infrastructure, build safe roads and bicycle lanes, spend it on education, lower the taxes, lower the kindergaren prices, have a balanced budget, build more social homes, more public transport, etc etc

    Look, I am not against helping each other out but in return we should expect some improvement in Wallonia, but they are just wasting it, no improvement at all, their socialst leaders keep it more interesting to be unemployed then employed cuz those people will keep voting on them, it’s a vicious circle, *”as long If you vote for us we will pay your unemployment benefit, + on the plusside, we use flanders money for it. win win!”

    Edit: look at al those socialist unemployed weed smokers downvoting my post. Lol

  15. NVA and Vlaams Belang might not fair too badly with this, lots of people on the other side also like their stance in regards to immigrants.

  16. The PS will never allow this on the Walloon side. This would be giving up their chokehold on Wallonia.

  18. The walloon parties will probably never agree because if everyone can vote for anyone and flemish votes are equal to walloon votes (which is not the case at the moment) then walloon parties will never ever be in power again because there are 6m flemish compared to 4m walloons…

  19. On a side note, why 150 seats? We have 10 provinces + brussels wouldn’t 110 be more appropriate? (My guess it’s some population thing) Even then why 10 per can’t we make do with 5 of em?

  20. I’m more in favour of the German system, where you get an ‘Erststimme’ (first vote) and a ‘Zweitstimme’ (second vote). The first vote is for a local candidate, whereas the second vote is for a party on the national level, balancing the parties’ representation on the national level and making sure that every vote is worth roughly the same.

  21. This only benefits politicians. If the PS wanted to run in Antwerp, it already could, it would just need candidates who lived in Antwerp, which I feel is not too high a bar if you want to represent them.

    The only purpose of a federal district is so a small number of high profile non-local politicians can get more votes.

  24. Ik heb sowieso nooit begrepen waarom ik als West-Vlaming enkel op West-Vlamingen kan stemmen voor een federale verkiezing. Of niet op Waalse partijen kan/mag stemmen. Ik zou het maar logisch vinden dat ik op iedereen die opkomt federaal kan stemmen. We stemmen immers al gemeentelijk, provinciaal en gewestelijk om regionale kandidaten te kunnen kiezen.
    Dus hun redenering dat er niet nog verder gesplitst dien te worden kan ik wel volgen.

    De timing en de partij die het voorstellen doen natuurlijk wel uitschijnen dat het hen nu gewoon goed uitkomt, terwijl het eigenlijk al jaren zo had moeten zijn.

  25. The venom is usually in the details. The article has no details so I can’t really judge it properly.

    The main question I have is: is this really one voting district for 20 seats where one person has one vote and no special tricks to undo people’s votes? Or are there special rules to ignore the votes and give a certain percentage to candidates from Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels? That has been the case in previous one Federal voting district proposals.

    Cause if so, this idea is dead on arrival as seats are practically guaranteed anyway.

    Also without special rules I expect Francophone parties to be against it. Voter participation is lower in Wallonia so this would cost them some seats. By population Flanders would take about 12/20 of these seats, but with low participation that could become 13 or 14.

  26. This will not end well for them but I understand the strategy.

    Which other Flemish party is openly arguing for this? It goes against the trend, which is to either continue the status quo or be in favour of further devolution.

    The bet is that this will position Open Vld as the anti-N-VA. The party that wants to unite Belgium versus the party that wants to split. Meaning they become a destination for votes of people unhappy with N-VA. Because nothing punishes N-VA more than a vote for a party that wants to undo the devolution of powers.

    Added to that, they’ll be the only Flemish party on the right (ish) with this viewpoint. This is going to appeal to a group of people who currently vote CD&V. After all, that party has mostly attracted people interested in stability but has been losing their pro business side.

    And, the idea is that the people who would be vehemently against this have left Open Vld long ago. A large part of the right wing moved to N-VA. So, the reasoning goes that positioning themselves as slightly pro Belgian will not cost them any votes, it can only win them some.

    If this is an actual strategy, they are likely to launch a few more proposals that are aimed at undoing some of the previous transfers of power.

    There was a lot of debate about this during covid when it seemed our half split structure was working against us. So they might even think that they will get popular support.

    But I doubt it will work. It will alienate some of their existing voters who are not separatist not unitarian either. It will close the door for their former right wing who still find N-VA to be more pro business anyway. And it may not even work to convince the more conservative voters of CD&V. After all, those tend to be ethically conservative too.

    And for what? What do they really gain with this proposal? The number of people who will vote for a politician from the other side is small. No matter how much they talk about principle, the reality is that will still mostly vote along language lines. Except in the regions with language facilities for French speakers.

    Of course, it won’t pass. I don’t see a lot of parties vote for this. Not in Flanders, not in Wallonia. It’s just an attempt to claim a theme politically. And it will backfire.

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