For the first time in Wallonia, the radical left PTB-PVDA will come into power at the local level. The party will form a coalition with socialist PS and greens Ecolo in Mons (Hainaut province) – the city of liberal MR leader Georges-Louis Bouchez.
The new city council will unite PS, Ecolo and PTB under the "Liste du Bourgmestre" of the current mayor Nicolas Martin (PS). Notably, PS and Ecolo had been governing the city for years and didn't need a third to form a majority. However, they decided to add the radical leftists to the coalition on Thursday.
"PTB were not my ideal partner before the elections but have shown themselves to be moderate and constructive," Martin said on Walloon radio on Friday morning. "And I wanted to keep my electoral commitments to not govern with [Bouchez's] Mons en Mieux list."
Mons mayor Nicolas Martin. Credit: Belga/Bruno Fahy
Martin added that he and Bouchez had "major differences of opinion" on the content of an agreement and that he had also been faced with people who were "extremely aggressive and insulting."
The Liste du Bourgmestre won 22 seats on the 45-seat council in Mons – falling one seat short of a majority. With Ecolo's two seats, the pair already had a majority and did not need PTB (four seats), mathematically speaking.
"But to be able to calmly manage a city the size of Mons, we need a comfortable majority," Martin said, emphasising his ambition to represent "as many citizens as possible." Together, the leftist tripartite holds 28 of the 45 seats.
'Absolute madness'
This coalition leaves out the second-largest party (MR leader Bouchez's Mons and Mieux list) with 14 seats – which Bouchez has denounced as "undemocratic" and "absolute madness". He said his party broke PS' absolute majority in Mons for the first time.
"We would all have punished N-VA if they had made an agreement with far-right Vlaams Belang. Then we should do the same when PS wants to cooperate with PTB-PVDA," he said. On social media, he spoke of "a coalition of shame."
While this is the first time that PTB-PVDA comes into power in a Walloon municipality, the party did previously co-govern in Flanders locally. During the last legislature, PTB-PVDA sat with Vooruit on the municipal council of Zelzate (near Ghent).
