It was a tense Monday evening in the East Flemish city of Ghent as around 200 supporters of the greens, the far-left PVDA, the centre-left socialist party Vooruit and members of civil society groups staged a protest outside the City Hall. Inside a meeting of the city council was taking place. The meeting came just a few hours after current and future Mayor Mathias De Clercq of liberal/socialist Voor Gent group had announced that Voor Gent intends to try and form a coalition with the centre-right Flemish nationalist party N-VA rather than with the greens. Earlier on Monday, the coalition negotiations between the Liberals, Socialists and Greens broke down.
Protest outside Ghent City Hall as the greens are ejected from the municipal coalition
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The decision not to continue coalition talks with the greens heralds their departure from the municipal coalition after 12 years.
There is lack of consensus between the socialists and liberals that with Voor Gent form the largest group on the council and the greens that are the largest single party. This centres on a number of issues such as transport, housing, policing, the installation of CCTV surveillance cameras, the organisation of large-scale events and mass tourism.
On Monday evening the Ghent greens said that “We will continue to fight for a social city”. The leader of the Ghent branch of the socialist party Vooruit Astrid De Bruycker told VRT News “We wanted the progressive coalition to continue and did everything we could. I am deeply disappointed”.
Some of the greens involved in the coalition negotiations spoke of a sham and said that they believe that Voor Gent and N-VA had already agreed in advance to form a new coalition before the talks even started.
“Ghent is still progressive”
The liberal politician Matthias De Clercq who is the current and will be the future Mayor of Ghent says that he believes that a progressive Ghent is possible even without the greens.
However, the left-wing protesters outside the town hall didn’t agree. The demonstration turn grim a while and police had to escort Voor Gent councillors from the City Hall as they tried to leave the building amid verbal abuse from protesters.