Getting more voters is the number one job for SP.A’s new president. In September Bruno Tobback, the only candidate for the job, will succeed Caroline Gennez as the head of the socialist party.
Every year, newspapers list out the holiday destinations of Belgium’s main political players. Usually, they do this because there is little else to report. But this year was different. The timing of the holidays was particularly odd, just one day after a dramatic speech by the King, which seemed to indicate that this time, for real, the country was falling apart.
This weekend, De Gucht lashed out again in an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws. He is perplexed by the political crisis that has left Belgium without a federal government for 11 months: “The politicians in power now can govern Europe like no one else. But themselves? Belgium? Alas. This isn’t normal, is it?”
Again, Belgium has not moved any closer to forming a federal government.
Tuybens entered the political scene in 2005, when he became secretary for government enterprises in the federal government. Before that, he worked as a broker, specialising in ethical investments, at KBC bank. He was also the president of Amnesty International Flanders.
Recently this description has fit the presidency of the socialist SP.A even more. Factions, discontent and disappointment, it's all there. When De Morgen last week reported that SP.A president Caroline Gennez would not stand for a second term, the news, though unconfirmed, surprised few. Since 2007, Gennez has blundered a couple of times. She tried to change the party's name without much internal consultation. She disappointed allies by denying them ministerial portfolios.
When it was founded in 2001, N-VA did not position itself as either right or left; it was nationalist foremost. That changed with the self-declared conservative Bart De Wever as president. He has even joked that "his real boss is Voka", an employers' organisation.
It wasn't always like this. In a 1950 referendum to determine whether Leopold III could stay on the throne after his behaviour during the Second World War was found to be anything but patriotic, the Flemish overwhelmingly voted in favour of their king.
The Facebook status of a prominent journalist last weekend summed up the political situation perfectly. Even European president Herman Van Rompuy clicked "like".
In Belgium most people have stopped counting the days since the federal elections in June 2010. Not much seems to be happening right now, apart from De Wever's trip to London and Elio Di Rupo (PS), the winner of the elections with the French speakers, taking a plunge in a new swimming pool in notable snug trunks.
Flanders Today is a 
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