BELGIUM’S NOTORIOUSLY fragile politics plunged into a new bout of turmoil with the collapse of its government only five months after prime minister Yves Leterme came to power for a second time.
Mr Leterme tendered his resignation to King Albert after the Flemish liberal Open VLD party – one of five coalition parties from the centre-left and centre-right – walked out of government over its failure to resolve a long-festering dispute over electoral boundaries around Brussels.
As talks to settle the affair collapsed in acrimony, one of the party's ministers wrote Alea jacta est(the die has been cast) on his Twitter page. The walkout has led to fears of a return to political stalemate in the linguistically divided country, which had no government for many months after inclusive elections in 2007.
Mr Leterme convened a short emergency cabinet meeting around lunchtime yesterday before leaving for the royal palace.
Keen to see whether an alternative can be found, the king did not immediately accept his resignation. If Mr Leterme is not persuaded to stay on, parliament would have to be dissolved and an election held within 40 days.
In a joint statement, the palace and Mr Leterme said: “The king and the prime minister jointly underlined that, in the current circumstances, a political crisis would be inopportune and would seriously damage both the economic and social wellbeing of the citizens and the role of Belgium in Europe.” The king later consulted the speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament. He was expected to receive the heads of Belgium’s mainstream parties. While the lower house was due to vote on a Bill to ban the burqa in public, sittings were suspended until next week.
The departure of Open VLD left the government’s remaining members in control of 76 of the 150 seats in the lower house. However, a slim minority would make it very hard to govern.
“We have not agreed on a negotiated solution and therefore Open VLD no longer has confidence in the government,” party chairman Alexander De Croo said. “By exiting the government, we want to maximally raise the pressure on everyone to find a solution.”
The premature end of the administration – in power since Mr Leterme’s predecessor Herman Van Rompuy left office to became the first president of the European Council in autumn – comes only 10 weeks before Belgium is due to take over the EU’s rotating six-month presidency.
At a time of acute economic weakness, the latest political crisis suggests the deep divisions that Mr Van Rompuy managed to keep under control during his short tenure as premier remain potent.
Mr Leterme had led the government for a crisis-ridden nine months prior to Mr Van Rompuy, resigning on foot of a court scandal. Five months previously, the king refused to let him leave office when he tendered his resignation after failing to bring to heel the country’s regional tensions.
He rejoined Mr Van Rompuy’s administration as foreign minister after his name was cleared in the court affair. He is known as a divisive but popular leader, receiving almost 800,000 votes in the 2007 elections, the second-highest total in the country’s electoral history.
His pledge during that campaign to devolve more power to regional authorities sparked fears it could lead to the disintegration of the state. French speakers feared delivering more power to the Dutch-speaking Flanders region would pull Belgium apart.
