It’s been somewhat longer than a year that I’ve felt like there was a qualitative shift, a societal tipping point, towards a more authoritarian or so-called ‘illiberal’ democracy. One where you can vote once every few years and that’s it. No civil society, no judicial system, no protests, no unions allowed to influence the party political manoeuvering. And we’ll have to be thankful, because it’s not as bad as elsewhere outside the ‘enlightened’ European continent…
It’s been regressing much longer than that. My impression is that the high point of integrity in Belgian politics was the late 1990s and early 2000s, so after Willy Claes got ousted and prior to Verhofstadt 2. Back then top politicians would step down even when something wasn’t their direct fault, but Belgium has regressed a lot since then. Politicians and government administrations again act as if they are above the law, which they obviously are, since none of them ever get convicted for corruption or abuse of their position. The only thing that makes them behave somewhat, is admonishments (+fines) of the European commission.
