De Wever does not want Magnette as prime minister

While PS chairman Paul Magnette makes it clear that he wants to become prime minister himself next time and will no longer give away the Sixteen, N-VA figurehead Bart De Wever now says the same. He does not think Magnette is suitable as Prime Minister and wants to do it himself.

“Magnette is unsuitable to become prime minister,” says N-VA chairman Bart De Wever in an interview with the weekly magazine Humo. ‘You cannot trust him because of his impulsiveness and the way he allows himself to be pushed around by the PVDA. He will never be able to transcend his party. So it will be up to me, as leader of – hopefully – the largest faction.’ De Wever thus claims the premiership.

At the launch of the Swedish government, he left the Sixteen to Charles Michel, which was the lubricant to hoist the MR on board as the only French-speaking party. But that was ‘not the best experience’, De Wever notes. ‘I want to be able to determine the government’s agenda myself.’

In his eyes, there is no one else but himself, “at least not to lead the government that I think is needed now,” he says. According to De Wever, a transitional cabinet for two years must be quickly installed to put the budget in order and prepare for a confederal change.

‘That will be a clash between those who want new income and those who want to save. Will that be fun? No, but we’ll figure it out. And in this way you retain a motivation to draw up the new Belgium behind the scenes and offer people hope again,” De Wever explains his plans.

In the meantime, De Wever also seems to have understood the message from the French-speaking parties that he infréquentable would be if the N-VA were to join forces with Vlaams Belang. De Wever says he is not interested in governing at Flemish level with Vlaams Belang. ‘To do something? To declare the revolution with Tom Van Grieken? I hate revolutions, they only bring chaos and poverty.’