The emperor was crowned (again)

A few weeks ago, another scandal involving PS politicians came to surface. At first, it looked small. Three of directors of the city housing department la Carolorégienne in Charleroi, who also 'happened' to be aldermen of the city, were reported to have filed and been granted expense reports of 10,000s of euros on dinners and wine. After strong pressure of the party top, they resigned as directors, but stayed on as aldermen. It took a while before the local party branch decided to force them to leave. Since aldermen are named for six years and can only be replaced after they resign or are suspended after disclipinary procedure (conducted by the provincial governor), they took their chances. They were ripped of their competences, but they didn't go. A week later, the first resigned. He was arrested later on on the charge of misappropriation. One of the two others also resigned up till now. The resignation only happened after PS leader Elio Di Rupo intervened personally, but one could still see it as a local affair, although characteristic of the political culture in French-speaking Belgium. Salient detail: the affair was brought into the media by a liberal politician...
Anyway, a few days later, public prosecutors found out that all legal cases of the housing department were done by the lawyer's office of another Charleroi politician, no one less than the popular former mayor and current prime minister of Wallonia, Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe (known als Van Cau). Di Rupo decided to ditch the whole group and withdrew his support for Van Cau. Van Cau resigned on September 30, only flanked by his deputy, André Antoine (cdH) and not by any of his party companions.

So, the PS got into crisis. Who was to succeed Van Cau? It had to be strong figure and because of the way the PS is working, there are only a few powerful politicians left aside from Di Rupo. Those are the Brussels strongholder Philippe Moureaux and federal deputy prime minister Laurette Onkelinx. Since there both living in Brussels, they cannot become prime minister of Wallonia. So Di Rupo had to become prime minister himself and he was installed yesterday. He also stayed on as party leader, so the PS statutes had to be changed in order to allow this. This might be normal in other countries, but in Belgium the position of party leader and party leader have never been combined (until recently with Didier Reynders, MR, who is party leader and federal deputy prime minister). We can draw two political conclusions for the near future:

1. The federal government Verhofstadt will probably ride it out (till 2007). During the summer, Di Rupo claimed he could make it fall with a snap of his fingers, but now he wouldn't risk new elections immediately (although I wonder whether the PS would lose more than 1% because of this).

2. Di Rupo had to take his responsibility. He is expected to bring a wind of change through the PS. But how is he going to do that? Even his personal protégée Marie Arena, current prime minister of the French-speaking Community of Belgium, has been into scandals of personal enrichment. Laurette Onkelinx, the federal Justice Minister, has the reputation that she grants all the legal business of the ministry to the lawyer's office of her husband, Marc Uyttendaele, a professor of law in the Free University of Brussels, while her ex-husband of Moroccan origin and still a good friend of hers, Abbès Guenned, is rumoured to be a drugdealer and a mafioso. How can you count on such people to hold up the law in the country? So, Di Rupo needs to clean things up and if (or when) he fails, we might finally see the end of l'état PS. Don't forget he also promised to drag Wallonia out of the economical morass with his so-called Marshall plan. In time, but slowly, Walloons will realize their future is not with the PS.