Belgian lawmakers voted in support of the mandate of Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib on Thursday evening, bringing to an end a two-week debate that questioned her granting of visas to an Iranian delegation for a mayors’ summit that put the government on the spot.
The invitation of Tehran’s mayor, Alireza Zakani – an ultra-radical of the Iranian regime – and an Iranian delegation to Brussels at Belgium’s expense earlier this month had several politicians calling for the resignation of French-speaking Liberal Lahbib (MR/Renew Europe).
But the Belgian parliament voted in favour of her staying in government after she admitted her mistake and apologised for her role in granting the visas.
The federal government, which is made up of seven parties – the French-speaking Socialist Party (PS), the Flemish Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams (CD&V) and Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democrats (Open VLD, party of M. De Croo), the French-speaking Mouvement Réformateur (MR), Vooruit (Flemish Social Democrats) and the French-speaking (Ecolo) and Flemish (Groen) ecologist parties – came under fire, however, with both opposition and majority parties criticising its role in and handling of what the Belgian press dubbed the “Irangate”.
The two largest opposition parties, NV-A and Vlaams Belang, have decided to table several motions of no confidence: two against Lahbib and one against Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. De Croo’s Open VLD then counter-attacked with a type of motion usually tabled by the majority when it wants to close a discussion, which had been co-signed by Lahbib’s MR party.
The latter was adopted on Thursday evening with 79 votes in favour, 50 against and four abstentions, rendering the opposition motions null and void.
The majority broadly supported the motion, with the PS and the Flemish and French-speaking ecologist parties stressing that this vote did not mean that Lahbib had regained their confidence.
Their vote was, in fact motivated by a desire not to destabilise the government and jeopardise its work.
The vote in favour of Lahbib comes despite revelations made by the Flemish daily on Het Laatste Niews Thursday morning, according to which the mother of two opponents of the regime living in Belgium, one of whom was filmed during a demonstration in Brussels by the Iranian delegation invited to the mayors’ summit, had been arrested and questioned in Isfahan, Iran, for several hours by the regime’s security services.
The minister was questioned on the matter ahead of the vote, and she said an investigation was still being carried out.
(Anne-Sophie Gayet | EURACTIV.com)
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