BELGIUM / NORWAY THE BELGIAN parliamentary and senate elections of November 24, 1991 showed that the crisis of political representation in the country has reached a qualitatively new level*. ALAIN TONDEUR
HE three traditional currents (Social Christian, Socialist and Liberal) only received 65.7% of the votes of the Flemish electorate (95% in 1950 and 74% in 1987). In the French speaking regions (Wallonia), the Socialist Party (PS), the Social Christians (PSC) and the Liberals (PRL) together received 81.5% of the votes (as against almost 89% in 1987).
People voted against all the established parties, including the Liberals, who lost 2.4% in Wallonia and 3.5% in Brussels, despite being in opposition. The setback for these parties is even clearer if we look at the results in the big cities, above all in Flanders. Here the CVP, SP and PVV only got 47.2% of the votes in Antwerp - non-traditional parties thus had the absolute majority here.
The Flemish federalists (the Volksunie
VU), despite adopting an ultranationalist tone, were also punished for taking part in the government, while their pre-electoral outbursts have damaged their credibility as a responsible government
However the biggest loser was the Socialist Party. The Christian Democratic party, the CVP, has a solid core confessional vote which it would take a very severe crisis to shake. However it is a different story with the SP/PS. In Flanders it lost 4.6%, its share of the vote falling to 19.6%. By participating in an austerity government it has undermined its own historic basis in collectivism; its electorate is leaving it to find another form of collective identity, a nationalist and racist one - in the far right Vlaams Blok. The SP has lost a third of its electorate in the Brussels region and in 19 communes it came behind the Vlaams Blok.
The PS is holding up better in Wallonia, where, despite losing 4.7%, it remains the biggest party, with 39.2% of the vote. Here the PS lost votes to parties to its left. However in the future it will probably also lose support to the fascists of the Front National (PN). 18 Blok and the gren colo party, the rejes Apart from the successes of the Vlaams tion of traditional politics was demonstrated by the substantial vote for the shady exmillionaire Van Rossem, who got 5.2% of the vote in Brussels establishment ticket. For the moment, this is the form in which political polarization and the breakdown of consensus same thing is happening in Flanders as in there is a rejection of professional politics, and of the traditional forms of political discourse and the party format, especially among the young. Nonetheless the two parts of the country give very different impressions.
In the South for the time being, the polarization is accompanied by a certain shift to the left, with the decline of the PRL and the breakthrough of Ecolo (the Francophone Greens), who saw their vote rise to 13.5% (+ 7%). Furthermore a left wing member of the Socialist Party, JeanMaurice Dehousse, who has opposed cutbacks in the Liège city administration, scored a personal success.
In the North, there is a very marked slide to the right, with the decline of the PS, the stagnation of the Flemish Greens (Agalev) at 7.9% (+ 0.6%) and above all the breakthrough of the far right Vlaams Blok with
Decline of left of the left
Meanwhile the left of the left fared badly. Thus in Wallonia, the Socialist Workers Party (POS-SAP, the Belgian section of the Fourth International) declined markedly in comparison with 1987, falling from 10,900 to 4,545 votes. The vote declined in Liège and Charleroi and the party only got 1,705 votes in the 19 communes of Brussels (against 3,013 in 1987).
The Belgian Party of Labour (PTB/ PvdA — a formation of Maoist origin) saw its national vote fall from 43,386 votes in 1987 to 31,674 this time. It lost 14,602 votes in Flanders while gaining 536 votes in Wallonia. In its Antwerp stronghold, the PTB/PvdA has slid from 17,309 votes in 1985 to 6,005 votes today. It seems more than likely that it held its position in Wallonia due to transfers from a small part of the traditional Communist electorate.
In Flanders, the Regenboog (Red and Green) coalition received in total 11,083 votes and suffered a loss of half of its votes compared to the 1989 European elections. However Regenboog got more creditable scores in Antwerp (7,587), Meuchelen (1,900), Leuven and Alost. * 1. See TV 218 for an account of the breakthrough made in these elections by the far right Vlaams Blok