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Belgian Political Parties Since Liberation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

F. E. Oppenheim
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Extract

The party structure in Belgium has always reflected not merely the graduation of opinions from the extreme right to the extreme left, but also the linguistic and religious differences of a nation divided into French and Flemish speaking people, and into Catholic believers and freethinkers. The latter distinction still remains the most important one. Thus, the parties continue, as during the nineteenth century, to be classified into “right” and “left” according to whether they have a religious or an agnostic character. The “right” is considered identical with the Catholic Party, and the “left” with the Liberal, Socialist, and Communist Parties. It is also true that the Catholic Party is considered politically conservative, and the “left,” taken as a whole, progressive. And since the “right” has an absolute majority in Flanders and the “left” in Wallonia (the French speaking region), it can be said that, very broadly, the religious, political, and linguistic groupings tend to place Catholics, conservatives, and Flemings against freethinkers, progressives, and Walloons.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1950 , pp. 99 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1950

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References

1 This article is based primarily on conversation with leaders and followers of all parties and attendance at numerous party conventions during the author's stay in Belgium from its liberation (September 1944) to December 1945 and during the summers of 1947, 1948, and 1949. The Belgian press and party literature has been analyzed regularly during the last five years.

2 Yet, workers of the Christian trade unions adhere to the Catholic Party (thus, the “right”), while the freethinking business men vote for the Liberal Party (thus, “left”), notwithstanding the fact that the former's opinions are to the left (in the ordinary sense of the word) of the latter's.

3 When the king, as commander-in-chief of the Belgian Army, capitulated on May 28, 1940, he was put “in an impossibility to rule” (Art. 82 of the Belgian Constitution). On July 19, 1945, the (“left”) majority of the House of Representatives voted in favor of a law, according to which the king's “impossibilité de regner” was not ended automatically with his liberation, but was to continue until parliament itself declared its end. This device enabled the “left” to prevent Leopold's return so long as it retained the majority in the House—which has been the case up to now.

4 Principles et Tendances du Parti Social Chrétien (Christmas 1945). This has remained the official party program up to date. The quotations which follow above are taken from this booklet.Google Scholar

5 The Catholic Bloc had indicated that in case it should obtain the majority in the newly elected parliament, its deputies would immediately vote the king's return. According to the PSC's program, however, parliament would not simply recall Leopold in case the Catholics were to win the elections but organize a plebiscite on the question whether the king should resume his former position. Shortly before the elections of 1946 the PSC stated that Leopold should not be recalled unless such a plebiscite would reveal a substantial majority in his favor; figures of 65 and even 80 percent were mentioned. At the PSC's annual congress of 1947, the Catholics' former slogan: “Sire, nous vous attendons” was replaced by the less explicit formula: “We are faithful to the monarchy, the dynasty, and Leopold III,” and by noncommittal statements such as: “the problem must be solved within the framework of the constitution” (quoted in Le Soir, July 7, 1947). In October, 1949, a majority of Catholics and part of the Liberals voted in favor of a bill providing for a plebiscite to be held before Christmas. The outcome of this “consultation populaire” would merely enable the king to decide whether, in his opinion, he had a sufficient following in all electoral districts to make his return advisable.

6 Bulletin d'Information du PSC (1948), Nos. 8–8, p. 471.Google Scholar

7 Especially La Libre Belgique.

8 Some of them had been disenfranchised for collaboration. Compared with the prewar strength of the Catholics, Flemish Nationalists, and Rexists combined (namely 45% of the total vote), the “right” suffered a small loss of 2.6%.

9 On February 21, 1948, the House passed a bill according to which the women would have the right to vote for the first time in 1949. The women's franchise had been opposed previously by the “left,” which had feared that a greater percentage of women than of men would vote Catholic. This hypothesis turned out to be unfounded, as the 1949 elections showed.

10 The following are the percentages of the total population according to the last census (Le Soir, , November 4, 1948):Google Scholar December 31, 1930 December 31, 1947

In 1946, 56.2% of the Flemish, 35.5% of the Brussels, and 27% of the Walloon voters voted Catholic. Thus, the greater the number of Flemish, and the smaller number of Walloons, the greater the overall percentage of Catholic voters.

11 At present, the PSC has 105 of the 212 seats in the House of Representatives, and holds the absolute majority in the Senate.

12 Hence the “school question,” concerning state subsidies to “private,” that is Catholic schools, continues to divide the “right” and “left” today no less than during the nineteenth century.

13 Thus, the rightist press may vituperate against the PSC's subservience to “bureaucratic socialism,” but the PSC deputies will unanimously give the Socialist-PSC coalition their vote of confidence.

14 In 1936, the Archbishop of Malines disapproved of Catholics voting Rexist. In the following elections, the Rexists lost 17 of their previously held 21 seats. Similarly, the UDB's defeat in the 1946 elections may be due primarily to a speech of the Archbishop on October 26, 1945, in which he mentioned “the necessity of unity among Belgian Catholies, who have a basically different outlook on life than non-Catholics.”

15 A future economic crisis might bring about a renewed and more important secession on the part of Catholic leftists, or, more likely, a growth of neo-Fascist groups such as the Flemish Nationalists.

16 The MRP invited the UDB and not the PSC to its party congress in December, 1945 (L'Aube, December 18, 1945).Google Scholar

17 Thus, it is only by tradition that the Liberal Party is still classified among the “left” parties, and the PSC is called “right.'

18 Leaving aside the ephemeral UDB. Compared with their strength in 1939, the Liberals lost almost half of their seats in the lower House.

19 Because of the Liberal Party's key position between the “right” and the parties further to the left, its political importance and influence is likely to remain greater than its numerical strength.

20 Report to the Socialist Congress of October 25–25, 1948.

21 Before the war, there existed no Communist unions, but (besides the numerically insignificant Liberal and independent organizations) only the Socialist and Christian trade unions. After liberation the latter remained tied to the Catholic Party and conceded only “unity of action” with non-Catholic workers.

22 Under the headline, “The Adversary is on the Right,” one of the four official party organs tried to persuade the leftists that “our temporary association (with the PSC) implies no concession of our principles, which are not theirs; we are collaborating with our opponents of yesterday in the hope of realizing the maximum amount of social reforms, in spite of the small forces which supported them when they were in the opposition.” (Le Peuple, March 20, 1947.)Google Scholar A year later, on March 5, 1948, Spaak was forced by his own party's left wing to hand in the government's resignation because he had given in to the Catholics' demand to increase state subsidies to certain private (Catholic) schools. The crisis was solved when Spaak returned to office with his previous team. Even the left Socialists had to acknowledge that there was no other alternative. Another cabinet crisis occurred on November 19, 1948, because the Catholic justice minister had reprieved two collaborators. On November 27, Spaak's coalition government returned again to office, practically unchanged.

23 The Socialists polled heaviest in the French speaking industrial cities of Charleroi (46.8%), Mons (44.5%), and Liége (41%).%

24 The FGTB's official organ is being edited by one of the members of Le Peuple's editorial staff. FGTB leaders usually present their problems first at the Socialist headquarters in Brussels before going “across the street” (where the FGTB headquarters happens to be located). Socialist party leaders no longer object to the principle of individual affiliation, now that the FGTB is firmly in Socialist hands.

25 It was mainly for the purpose of attracting intellectuals that the party, after liberation, changed its name from Belgian Workers' Party to Belgian Socialist Party.

26 Except for one short interruption, from November 1944 to March 1945. The resignation of the three Communist ministers from the all-party government was due to pressure from the extreme leftist rank and file. During that period, the party bureau had not yet succeeded in ascertaining its complete authority over all Communist followers and was therefore forced to deviate from the general party line of cooperation. Another instance was the coal mine strike in spring 1945, at the crucial moment of the last offensive against the Germans, which was instigated by local Communist leaders against the will of the party bureau.

27 Under the pretext of disagreeing with the decision of the other government parties (Socialists and Liberals) to raise the coal price. Later the Communists claimed that the other parties, acting “in accordance with Truman's directions,” had compelled them to resign.

28 Resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the Belgian Communist Party, March 5, 1949, quoted in Le Soir, March 7, 1949.Google Scholar

29 The Communists were exactly like the Socialists, strongest in the industrial, French speaking cities of Mons (29%), Charleroi (25.5%) and Liege (25.5%); in the two largest Flemish cities, Antwerp and Ghent, they polled only 4 and 5 percent, respectively.