Belgian catholic Union electoral poster

The global economic crisis unleashed in October 1929 added to the political agitation Europe had been experiencing since the end of the Great War, and Belgium was not exempt. Its public sphere saw debates on such questions as popular fronts, authoritarian solutions, or abandoning parliamentary government. Even so, during the 1930s an entrenched culture of coalition governments gave the country the stability to resist the advance of the most radical political solutions. 

Following the fall of the government of Georges Theunis due to the unpopularity of its policies towards the economic crisis, a Liberal-Catholic-Socialist government led by Paul Van Zeeland took office in March 1935. Its main goal was to introduce measures to promote economic recovery and reduce social discontent. After seeing out the last year of the legislative session, it called elections for May 1936. It became clear during the campaign that despite the ability of the main political parties to compromise, forge coalitions, and respect the rules of the parliamentary game, in the highly polarized ideological environment, there was also room for ferocious competition for voters. 

As the crisis created space for more radical discourses, the main political parties were driven to reassert their political identity.  The Belgian Catholic Union launched a highly aggressive campaign in which it used fear to mobilize its base and win over new voters. As this poster illustrates, it used the creation of the Spanish Popular Front and its victory in the elections of February 1936 to do so. It shows the head of a bull painted red goring a mitre and Crown with the caption: Red Spain. To avoid the same fate, vote Catholic”. The poster provoked a response from the government of the Spanish Republic. The chargé d’affaires in its Brussels embassy, Ernesto de Zulueta e Isasi, sent a letter to Prime Minister Van Zeeland demanding the poster be withdrawn. Citing the constitutionally protect freedom of opinion, Van Zeeland refused to take any action.

This episode demonstrates that even if political parties were able to create governing coalitions which brought together forces that were, in principal, incompatible, the Belgian political landscape was not exempt from the polarization that was spreading across Europe. The effects of the economic crisis made Belgian society open to more radical discourses. In this climate, the Spanish Civil War influenced Belgian politics as it contributed to polarization by becoming an important propaganda weapon. .