The left-leaning parties in government (Ecolo, Groen, PS, and Vooruit) will vote to keep Hadja Lahbib (MR) in office as Foreign Affairs Minister, as the Federal Government looks to move on from the divisive Brussels Urban Summit that has marked Belgian politics of late.
No party has declared full confidence in Lahbib but they have chosen to support the minister in order to avoid a government collapse just a year before the 2024 federal elections.
The government’s left wing had previously seemed divided about how to proceed regarding a vote of confidence planned for Thursday. On the right, Flemish nationalist parties N-VA and Vlaams Belang had both filed a motion of no-confidence in the Foreign Affairs Minister over her role in granting visas to Iranian officials attending a mayoral summit in Brussels.
The incident has already led to the resignation of Brussels’ Secretary of State Pascal Smet (Vooruit). Many argued strongly that Lahbib should do likewise, though neither the minister nor her Francophone liberal party accepted these criticisms fully, instead blaming the Brussels government and Lahbib defending her actions as "realpolitik" and excusable in the context of international diplomacy.
«Madame Lahbib a-t-elle encore la crédibilité pour conduire notre diplomatie après avoir accueilli à Bruxelles le boucher de Téhéran et mis toute une série de personnes en danger? » @SamuelCogolati
— Martin Buxant (@Le_Bux) June 27, 2023
Tweet translation: "Can Lahbib still be a credible figure to conduct Belgium's diplomatic affairs after having welcomed the 'butcher of Tehran' into Brussels and putting a number of people in danger?" – a quote by critical MP Samuel Cogolati.
These arguments failed to convince her partners in government to back her, especially given MR’s history of jockeying to the detriment of government's smooth functioning. Yet with Belgium's biggest left-leaning party PS (French-speaking socialists) on Tuesday evening announcing their support for Lahbib, the embattled Foreign Minister seemed to stand on firmer ground.
This improvement likely had much to do with her partial apology in a parliamentary committee on Monday. Though it didn't convince critics of her innocence in the affair, it provided an opportunity to "restore political calm" and "avoid a political crisis" in government.
Wouter De Vriendt, leader of the Flemish green party (Groen), stressed that Lahbib and her party MR "will have to work hard to restore confidence in the coming months."
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Yet the threat of government collapse and a subsequent early election seems to have persuaded those critical of Lahbib to bury the hatchet for now. In the event of such a political crisis and an election, recent polls predict that major players in the government would lose out, opening the door to the Flemish right wing parties.
In particular, Flemish CD&V party was wary of the very real far-right threat. CD&V party leader Sammy Mahdi reportedly spent the last two days ringing coalition partners to convince them to drop the Lahbib issue.
The Federal Government will now have to co-exist for another year, amid unresolved internal tensions, all while needing to pass various reforms.
