Start 1861: I just inherited the Dutch throne

Chapter 71 Leopold I’s “painstaking efforts”

When the West Flanders Senator Danetang defeated his opponent in the West Flanders Senate race in 1861, Hughes (the councilman of Bruges) never expected that he would defeat his opponent. , has grown so fast, so looking back now, it is not unreasonable for him to fail in the campaign for promotion from city councilor to Senate.

At the same time, I feel unbelievable about my past mistakes.

Especially when he successfully ran for city councilor for the first time, in order to maintain contact with the people, he initiated many hometown meetings. The first meeting was held in his hometown of Roeselare. At the meeting, the fledgling councilor opened his mouth Let’s talk about the responsibilities of the Bruch City Council.

"I am your representative at the urban level. I don't care whether the roads in your town are smooth or not. I am not responsible for picking up your garbage."

When the time came for the city councilor to be asked questions, a farmer representative from his hometown sitting in the first row kept raising his hands. After receiving approval, he said: "Hey sir, I have something to tell you. They who are responsible for sanitation should come at least once a week to pick up the garbage, but they haven't come for a month, and our dog even runs inside from time to time."

The city councilor said dissatisfied: "You know, the representative of my hometown, I just said that I am now the city councilor of Bruch, Belgium. I am now in charge of the budget preparation and national issues of Bruch. This For small matters, you should go to your town mayor or the relevant professional department."

The representative looked at the proud new Bruch City Councilor, looked directly into his eyes, and said without any irony: "I don't want to find those high-level people at the beginning, because I think you are the most suitable one, but Now I find that you are also a high-level figure now, it seems that I took it for granted."

Recalling the representative's words, Hughes felt inexplicably ashamed, and at the same time he was dissatisfied with his youthful behavior.

If a person entering the secular political realm must undergo a similar religious baptism, then everything that happened to Hughes at that moment was equivalent to this kind of ritual.

No matter how different it is around the world, the true face of political life is like a ladle of cold water, which will be poured on every smug young politician, because after more than a year of precipitation, especially from several candidates recently, From everything that happened, I understood a truth: It is not you who tell people what they should do and what they should consider. On the contrary, it is them who should tell you what you should do and consider.

The first round of the Belgian general election has come to an end.

At this point in the election, it is a foregone conclusion that the position of Prime Minister will be chosen among the four. Who will become the new Prime Minister of Belgium is attracting much attention.

Even the major financial groups and political forces in Belgium are taking notice of this and have begun to frequently contact the three people. All forces are beginning to "test the water temperature" and put forward their own "plans" to see which candidate is theirs. The best partner, if they work together, will receive the full support of this force and consortium against the other three candidates.

On the contrary, it will directly become the target of their criticism.

The winners are Orban, a liberal senator based in Brussels, royal loyalist, pro-British prime minister who wants to be re-elected; Joseph Beit, a liberal senator from the eastern province of Limburg; Senator Jules Danetang of the Rand Province; and Senator Merant of the Southern Province of Hainaut.

The above are the most powerful candidates in Belgium’s general election to become prime minister.

Among them, Alban, who had the loudest voice at the beginning, seems to have started to sink due to the limitations of his status;
Senators Joseph Beit and Jules Danetang, both from the ruling Liberal Party, were not favored again. Now they easily eliminated their opponents after two rounds. The election situation is bullish and they have lost a lot of Alban's votes. Ballot Resources.

Merant, the leader of the opposition Catholic Party, completely defeated his challengers within the party and advanced directly through the ranks, becoming the candidate with the most abundant capital and resources.

After all, the Catholic Party, where the French-speaking region is located, accounts for more than 30% of the votes in Belgium. The party is very united and has a strong view of the overall situation. This is why it is difficult for his challengers to shake him. With more than 30% of the votes, it is a stable vote. Although it feels weak to face the Liberal Party with 60%+, you must know that there are three people among the Protestant liberals dividing these votes, and no one has 20% evenly. This is definitely a huge advantage for Merant.

Therefore, the opposition party Merante is also gearing up, and is trying its best to send its own troops to win over insiders in the three candidates' camps, in order to increase its base.

He acted with the mentality that even if he could not win over his opponent, he would still be able to ruin his opponent's good deeds. Therefore, he even targeted the three Liberal Party camps and cast a net all over the Liberal Party.

It is said that even another senator from the liberal Brussels District and the current Minister of Justice Dams, who was the right hand of the current Prime Minister Orban and harbored Sima Zhao's heart, was also roped in. If it were not for the corruption case If the probability of his appearance is low, he might become a competitor with Alban in the primary election to represent the Brussels District as prime minister this time.

He was always regarded as a dark horse by the Liberal Party, but due to his falling out with Alban, he is now somewhat embattled within the Liberal Party, so he seems to want to lead his followers to choose to get closer to Merante.

This caused a huge earthquake in the Liberal Party and the Belgian political arena not long ago, because although Dams is not at the top level among liberals, his support rate among liberals has always been around 10% due to many years of management. Loyal supporters are also around 5%.

If these 5% of supporters follow him and vote for the Catholic Party, then the fringe members of the Liberal Party who do not belong to the Protestant faith will shrink rapidly, which is also a big problem for the Liberal Party, which has always been said to be tolerant and open-minded. of blow.This will definitely strengthen Merante's momentum, just like it does now.

Many Belgian political analysts believed in interviews with "Standard" and "Brussels Journal" that this would have a great impact on the Belgian political situation, and even threaten the foundation of liberal governance. Therefore, many people feel that, This general election will change many things, and may even change the situation in which the Liberal Party in the Dutch-speaking areas has been dominated.

It has officially entered a situation where two parties are competing for hegemony.

King Leoporte I of the Kingdom of Belgium unexpectedly stood up.

In an interview with "European Times", the most influential media in the world today, on February 1862, 2, he said: Currently, no candidate has majority support, so he refused to publicly express his support to avoid The country has fallen into a state of more intense competition, destroying the order of healthy competition.

At the same time, I am also satisfied with the wonderful performance of all the candidates, especially the newly rising Limburg Senator Joseph Beit from the Dutch-speaking area and Senator Jules from the Dutch-speaking West Flanders Province. Danetang is one of the top rising stars in Belgium.

He promised to support the formation of the cabinet in accordance with the election results. No matter who wins the election, he will support it.

Leopold I said that the Belgian country is deeply divided, making it difficult to govern the country. Therefore, despite the political crisis, he will not rashly intervene because so far, no candidate has shown disloyalty to the country. As well as betraying the interests of the country, if he intervenes, it will cause unnecessary trouble for Belgium's current election and the country will fall into a state of disorder, which is very detrimental to the situation in Belgium.

Despite this, Leopold I promised that if any candidate showed disloyalty to the country and betrayed national interests, he would stop it at all costs in order to safeguard Belgium's national interests.At the same time, he advocated that after the election, all factions should come together to negotiate the future development of Belgium to ensure that Belgium can continue to make steady progress in Europe in the future and solve the dilemma of national development.

In an interview with the media, King Leopold I said that he believed that no matter what, it was time for Belgium to reform the country, especially military development. Belgium’s military foundation obviously lagged behind neighboring countries, so Belgium could easily provide assistance to neighboring Netherlands here. Study, because the Netherlands’ naval strength currently ranks 8th in the world. On a per capita basis, the Netherlands’ naval tonnage even ranks first in the world. After all, the UK’s 23 tons are divided according to the population of more than 3000 million and the Netherlands’ 9 tons and 600 million people. , there is really a huge gap. In this regard, only Denmark and the Kingdom of Portugal can keep up.

So Belgium can use this as a place to learn.After all, Belgium, a naval power, can gain recognition from more countries in safeguarding interests overseas.

Just like what the United Kingdom just announced, if Belgium's navy is strong enough, we can follow the United Kingdom and play toothpicks. It is also a very good choice to pick up bargains.

He believes that Belgium's geographical location is destined that his country will not be as simple and easy to manage as the single-ethnic countries of Britain, France, Spain or even the Netherlands and Denmark. Therefore, he has already prepared many countermeasures for this. He only hopes that the people can understand his difficulties, Bona met him half way
Although what Leoport I said was very pleasant, except for Alban.None of the other candidates made clear statements to support his views.

Observers in many countries said that this proved that Leopold I had lost the support of most people in Belgium. From the effects of the above-mentioned promises and announcements, many people said that it was too late. French and Dutch people are not easily bribed or moved.

The liberal Joseph Beit campaign issued a statement, saying that although Beit supports most of the king's views, he does not agree with the view of being too close to the British, because the British prioritize their own national interests around the world. Foreign policy matters, rather than the attitude of cooperating happily with whoever is happy. Therefore, Beit opposed King Leopold I's statement that he was ignorant of the British, and instead advocated Belgium's independent diplomatic route in Europe.

Merante from the southern Franconian region also criticized the king's pro-British policy, believing that being connected by mountains and rivers, Belgium's greatest reliance should be on being pro-French.If he is elected, he will take the initiative to promote an alliance between Belgium and France in order to dissolve Belgium's tense diplomatic relations with France for many years.

He also called for a conference to be organized for all Belgian political figures who do not support pro-British policies to show how strong Belgian public opinion is against anti-British policies.

But in the end, he said that he was only anti-British, but not against the rule of the Belgian royal family.

As for Prime Ministers Alban and Danetang.
(ps: Chapter 1, from November 11th to today, January 28st, has been updated continuously for 1 days, with an average of 1 words per day, the kind that does not save manuscripts, which shows my persistence in this article. If you like it, please continue to support it.

Last month's monthly tickets have all been refreshed and reset to zero. However, today I have received support from book friends for 20 tickets, ranking 1250th on the website's monthly ticket list, which is pretty impressive.

But please continue to support. After all, during the new book period, your monthly votes, recommendation votes, rewards, etc. are very important for the new book to attract attention on the website, so I implore everyone to continue to support.Thank you and Happy New Year!

）

(End of this chapter)