“If I want to be lectured to for two hours, I’ll go back to university,” Bart De Wever said after negotiations with Vandenbroucke. Vandenbroucke is not only intelligent, he never tires of trying to convince people, a trait many found extremely irritable and ultimately lead to his estrangement from his party SP.A.
Vandenbroucke’s political career is full of tragic moments. One of these came in the early 1990s when he became party president at the age of 34. In the wake of a corruption scandal, Vandenbroucke, squeaky clean himself, stumbled unto some unaccounted for cash. He asked his collaborator to get rid of the money and is reported as saying “burn it, if that is needed”. When those words became public, Vandenbroucke, federal minister for foreign affairs by then, resigned.
He left for Oxford and got inspired by Tony Blair’s “third way”, between socialism and economic liberalism. His views that took shape here became a binding ideology for the governments under Guy Verhofstadt (Open VLD), in which Vandenbroucke, rehabilitated and widely respected by now, was a minister.
As an intellectual, he became popular with the public at large. People who worked with him, though, often found his intransigence hard to swallow. In the end, he clashed with the French-speaking socialists, which motivated him move to the Flemish government. As he became even more respected as a minister for education, the alienation with his party grew. Somehow, Vandenbroucke always seemed more popular outside SP.A than within it.
It led to another tragic moment in 2009, as Vandenbroucke showed up for government negotiations, which had been postponed. No-one had bothered to notify him, a key negotiator. Eventually, he was left out of the Flemish government in 2009. Except for those who had seen him at work from up close, few people understood. The outrage this caused in socialist ranks ultimately destabilised Caroline Gennez as party president.
Vandenbroucke reacted with dignity and let the votes do the talking. He was elected into the Senate in 2010. This week he announced his retirement from politics. He wants to have more time on his hands for scientific research. The professor, still.
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