2023-10-10 19:42:00
The municipal council is the scene of the internal quarrels raging within the Molenbeek PS. The succession of Philippe Moureaux, who managed the town with an iron fist, still does not seem to have been digested.
At the center of the struggles sits his daughter, Catherine Moureaux, the current mayor who does not lack strength either. His power, however, is increasingly contested internally. And coveted.
Suspected of having assaulted one of her aldermen, Catherine Moureaux defends herself: “It’s completely unbearable”
The rivalry with Jamal Ikazban
“Catherine Moureaux is very weakened in her section. She needs to gather more. If she doesn’t pull herself together, she will have a problem, and the PS will find itself in opposition. It is also not impossible that Jamal Ikazban will rally the discontented in 2024, to keep the majority in Molenbeek. With its weight and its bottle, it is the one that will be best accepted by the majority partners,” a socialist source tells us.
Jamal Ikazban could already have claimed to take the reins of the municipality in 2018. He already saw himself there, some say. This was without counting on the return of Catherine Moureaux to Molenbeek in 2015, with the support of her father. Socialist unity had already been fractured by then. Electorally, the two elected officials are close to each other (4,133 votes for the Brussels deputy against 4,316 votes for Catherine Moureaux in 2018).
In December 2022, the latent conflict between the two elected officials exploded in everyone’s face when the Molenbeek PS, pushed by the mayor, dismissed Jamal Ikazban from his position as group leader. The Brussels MP opposed the majority’s decision to increase the PRI (property tax) by 16%.
Since his ouster, Jamal Ikazban has withdrawn and no longer attends the municipal council. However, he announces that he will return there soon. But in the meantime, disunity within the Molenbeek PS has increased. Several other elected officials are absent and the municipal council has had to be postponed several times due to lack of quorum.
Physical altercation or cabal?
It is in this deleterious atmosphere that the new strong tensions arose last Thursday between the mayor and Abdellah Achaoui (PS), alderman of Mobility, on the subject of the dismissal of a municipal official.
It all starts from a tense discussion between the two during a College meeting. The mayor then decides to summon her troops to her office, without the liberals, for an explanation between socialists. Inside the office, the discussion gets heated. Abdellah Achaoui would have mentioned Catherine Moureaux’s father, former socialist mayor of Molenbeek, considering him a better manager than his daughter.
La Capitale evokes the physical altercation which would have followed, and the scratches to which Abdellah Achaoui would have been the victim. Versions differ on its intensity and nature.
Contacted by the DH, the Molenbeek mayor does not rule out filing a legal complaint for defamation. She assures “that she did not physically harm anyone”. “It’s completely unbearable,” she continues. This Tuesday, in the Municipal College, the mayor recounted the incident, explaining to her aldermen that she had contented herself with briefly grabbing Abdellah Achaoui by the sweater, the latter having refused to leave the room of his own free will.
The Mobility alderman is, according to socialist sources, currently traveling abroad for a few days after being placed on sick leave by a doctor.
Other sources mention more spectacular facts, but none of those who actually witnessed the events – the socialist aldermen Amet Gjanaj, Jamel Azaoum, Abdellah Achaoui and Saliha Raiss – have yet commented on the incident.
The mayor’s entourage evokes a cabal against her. Quickly after the events, Catherine Moureaux contacted the PS vigilance commission, and Abdellah Achaoui did the same shortly after.
How to govern together after that? The PS will have to position itself and take sides. These complaints will inevitably leave traces…
This affair, without a doubt, takes to a higher level the deleterious climate which reigns within a Molenbeek majority (socialists and liberals) already weakened by the appointment of Saliha Raiss, veiled alderwoman, whom the MR did not want.
The end of the legislature will be long in Molenbeek…
End of the saga in Molenbeek, Saliha Raiss, who wears the veil, took the oath as alderman: “It’s historic, I almost want to cry”
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