BRUSSELS (AP) — The last time federal elections were held in Belgium in 2019, it took nearly 18 months before a new prime minister could be sworn in to lead a seven-party coalition government.
The wait was even longer after the 2010 vote when the country needed 541 days to form a government, still a world record.
Belgian voters return to the national polls on Sunday, in conjunction with the European Union vote, amid a rise of both the far-right and the far-left in the country. The vote could mean complex negotiations ahead in a country of 11.5 million people who are divided by language and deep regional identities.
Belgium is split along linguistic lines, with francophone Wallonia in the south and Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, and governments are invariably formed by coalitions made of parties from both regions.
The latest opinion polls suggest that a new headache is on the horizon.
Two Flemish nationalist parties are poised to gather the largest shares of votes in Flanders, with the far-right Vlaams Belang, which backs independence for Flanders, is expected to win more than 25% of the vote. Just behind, the right-wing nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) could get around 20% of the vote.
In French-speaking Wallonia, the Socialist Party is projected to garner as much as a quarter of the ballots ahead of liberals and the far-left Belgium’s Workers Party. Poorer Wallonia — whose decline started in the 1960’s while Flanders’ economy went up — traditionally leans in favor of national unity because the region would likely find it difficult to survive economically on its own.
I’m really interested in learning more about this but when I searched online I couldn’t find any firm answers either way, just some kind of vague wording about NATO being western imperialism (which it is, IMO) and a lukewarm position of being opposed to extending the war in Ukraine, which I can also be sympathetic towards if it’s for the right reasons.
I’m very anti-Russia and anti-imperialist, and I completely agree that tankies can get fucked, but I’d really appreciate it if you could provide any further info about their support of Russia etc. - at the moment it reads more to me like they’re a bit idealistic rather than a direct Russia supporter if you know what I mean.
I’d rather have a left-wing government government that is a bit naive than a fascist regime, so I definitely don’t think they’re worse than the far right.
It sounds like you’re looking for a hard link, like the one between the far right and china/russia. There is none, as far as I am aware.
The fact they aligned their views about NATO and the Ukraine invasion with Russia (the “NATO threatened Russia, so they had no choice” narrative you also mentioned), and their general affection towards the USSR is more what I was getting at. To me, that’s sufficient to be considered pro-russian.
As to why I called them “more dangerous” (not “worse”, I agree that the far rights ideas are considerably worse) - It’s a couple of things. I feel they are more competent in general than the right. They’re also more idealistic and consistent.
Those by themselves are not dangerous traits, but I also question how far that affection towards the USSR and China goes.
While I actually agree with much of their points, I’m just not that sure how much of the USSR/China they’d actually like to replicate. Regardless of that, I believe they would be fairly successful in implementing much of it - hence why I think they are more dangerous.
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