THE PROSPECT an early general election in Belgium drew closer yesterday as parliament debated the fallout from the collapse of premier Yves Leterme’s government .
Voters are likely to go the polls in June, just before the linguistically divided country takes over the EU’s rotating presidency for a six-month term on July 1st.
The election, a year before the next scheduled poll, comes as Belgium battles recession.
Politics in the country – deeply divided between Dutch-speakers in Flanders in the north and French-speakers to the south in Wallonia – are notoriously volatile. After the last election in 2007, the country went without a government for 300 days.
The latest disruption was seized upon by Flemish nationalists, who this week called for the “dissolution” of the Belgian state.
Although critics fear the divisions could pull the country apart, polls suggest a majority in prosperous Flanders do not want to break away from Wallonia.
Mr Leterme’s administration collapsed last week after only five months in power, after the Flemish liberal Open VLD party – one of five coalition parties from the centre-left and centre-right – quit government over its failure to resolve a long-festering row over electoral boundaries in a bilingual voting district around Brussels.
After his bid last weekend to forge a compromise failed, King Albert II finally accepted Mr Leterme’s resignation on Monday.
In a country that prides itself on Brussels’s status as the capital of Europe, the turmoil has led to unsparing media criticism. Le Soir, the French-language daily, summed up the situation this week as “total paralysis”.
In anticipation of an early election, Mr Leterme handed the leadership of the Flemish Christian Democrats to party chairwoman Marianne Thyssen. “Somebody must shoulder this responsibility, I’m shouldering it,” said Mr Leterme of his failure to settle the divisions in his administration.
Although the hope is to restore a functioning government in time for the presidency, the political atmosphere in a country that relies on coalitions is very sour.
A Belgian diplomatic source acknowledged that the disruption was not good for the country’s image. “People in the streets are very disappointed in their politicians but Belgians are used to it.”
The electoral boundaries dispute, which has smouldered for 40 years, centres on the bilingual Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district, known in local shorthand as BHV.
Belgium’s constitutional court ruled this district illegal in 2003, as it violated the strict separation of Dutch- and French-speaking regions.
The ruling has torn Belgian politics ever since, as no government has been able to forge a solution.
When they walked out of government last week, the Dutch liberals said they wanted to jolt the system into a resolution. That proved elusive, with French-speaking parties blocking debate on the issue as parliament met yesterday.
Complicating matters further is the constitutional court’s decree that a solution must be found before elections can be held. Sources expect a legal manoeuvre by parliament to remove this obstacle.