Oldal 3 [3]
OCR
Ah? 04 $2 - page three dissatisfaction of the previously PSC middle-class supporters, it is foreseen however that, in the municipal elections, liberals will gain a certain amount of votes. These ballots they will gain will not come from voters who agree with the liberal program, but from electors who feel that, under present circumstances they have no other choice. Consequently this cannot be tabled as a stable gain. Besides, according to all observers, the Liberal Party is suffering of a leadership crisis. It has no outstafnding men at hts head at present. Mr.Albert Deveze is advancing in age and has no more the strength of past years. The Fe3 (Parti Socialiste Belge) counts among its leaders . three outstainding figures. Mr.Buset is the head of the Party. He is a higly intelligent, capable and extremely authoritarian leader. His will makes the rule. It is due only to his energy and to his absolute authority that the Party unity has becn maintained, despite divergencies existing among its members. Mr.Buset is not afraid of threatening even the most outstafnding socialists with exclusion from the Party, if they should fail to accept the group's discipline, Paul-Henri Spaak is the leader of the right-wing group among socialists He is well known in internatiénal circles, having been foreign minister and having plaid a role in world-wide and European affairs. His recent nomination ing Strasbourg has been received in Belgium with great surprtse and not always with the most favorable comments. In the country itself indeed - with the exception of the group of his immediate followers - Mr.Spaak is not well liked. Everyone recognizes his ability and his oratory facilities. Conservatives criticize his attitude in the royal question and more recently in opposing the 24months military service. It is felt that the same man should not try to incite Army recruts against their superiors, should not work inside Belgium against a European Army and then accept a honor position in Strasbourg. - Old socialist leaders feel that Mr. Spaak is not entirely reliable: once already he nearly split the Party, making its right wing independent, if it was not for Mr.Buset's strong attitude. Now he is still held by Mr.Buset, woo is said to have the most amazing influence on Spaak. - As to the young socialist they bitterly criticize Spaak for his “double personality": he is living an easy bourgeois life for himselfg but if it comes to propaganda and manifestations, he dresses and acts as a proletarian and utters the most revolutionaty words. Mr.Victor Larock is the third outstajüűng figure of the socialist party The capable editor of the socialist newspaper "Le Peuple", he is the leader of the left-wing gpoup in the Party. He too, it is said, would have become a Nemmb and tried to split away from the right-wing of Spaak, if it was not for Mr.Buset's unifying authority. The latter is opposed to any alliance with or support of the communist, with the exception of certain specific actions. He fears indeed that a party, developing at the left of the PSB would push the latter into becoming a center group that will have to look for support and alliance with the right. At that same moment, Mme socialist party leadership knows, it will lose all its left-wings, especially all the young socialists, who will prefer to join the communists. While some of the more rightwing socialist, might, under sueh circumstances, enter a common group with the left-wing of the Christian Party. This would mean peactically the end of socialism in Belgiumg in the same way as, in the past, the rising of the socialist Party at the left has meant the down-ward trend and weakening of the liberals. 6,
