Belgians were voting yesterday in general elections that are widely seen as a vote on an orderly breakup of the country where 6.5 million Dutch and 4 million French speakers are locked in a quarrelsome union.
Polls predicted a solid showing for a mainstream Flemish party whose leader wants Dutch-speaking Flanders to sever its ties with Francophone Wallonia and, in time, join the EU as a separate country.
This is a nightmare scenario for poorer Wallonia, which greatly depends on Flemish funds, and shows how linguistic disputes dominate national politics.
Voting is mandatory. Some 7.7 million Belgians were to cast ballots at 10,630 voting stations. Polling opened for seven hours yesterday.
Elections were called one year early after Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s five-party coalition fell apart on April 26 in a dispute over a bilingual voting district.
That spat has gone unresolved since 2003 and pushed the New Flemish Alliance — a tiny, centrist party only a few years ago — into pole position: It is forecast to win a quarter of the vote in Flanders.
Its leader, Bart de Wever, 39, wants an orderly breakup of Belgium by shifting the national government’s last remaining powers, notably justice, health and social security, to Flanders and Wallonia. That would complete 30 years of ever greater self-rule for the two regions.
The new Flemish alliance wants Flanders to join the EU. There are no comparable separatist sentiments in Wallonia.
Belgium must cut public spending by 22 billion euros (US$26.5 billion) in the years ahead, but the issue has taken a backseat to Flemish-Walloon sniping.
In the words of Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders, a Francophone Liberal, the question facing Belgians is: “Do we still want to live together?”
Others favor more self-rule for Belgium’s language camps, but no divorce.
“We did a study of 10,000 people and found 84 percent want the country reformed, but not broken apart,” said Marianne Thyssen, a Dutch-speaking Christian Democrat.
In Belgium, just about everything — from political parties to broadcasters to Boy Scouts and voting ballots — already comes in Dutch and French versions.
Pierre Verjans, a University of Liege political scientist, said he felt “a sense of mourning going on. French-speakers now fear a Belgium without Dutch-speakers.”
De Wever’s surprise high rating follows three years of utter stalemate. As governments worldwide tried to tame a financial crisis and recession, the four that led Belgium since 2007 struggled with linguistic spats while the national debt ballooned.
Nothing illustrates the impasse more than the bilingual voting district comprising Brussels and 35 Flemish towns bordering it.
The high court ruled it illegal in 2003 as only Dutch is the official language in Flanders. Over the years, Francophones from Brussels have moved in large numbers to the city’s leafy Flemish suburbs, where they are accused of refusing to learn Dutch and integrate.
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