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Belgian Elections - if anybody cares
Yesterday Yves Leterme, flemish christian democrat, officially became the most powerful politician in Belgium with 800.000 preferential votes (only one politician did better in Belgian history) and an overwhelming score in Flanders for his party, the CD&V.
Chances are he will become prime minister. Why did he get elected? A charismatic leader riding high on the anti-walloon/anti-french wave popular in Flanders. Seeing his victory speech yesterday was quite scary (picture http://www.standaard.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2007/06/10/verkiez1bis.jpg)
Dozens of Flemish nationalistic flags being waved in the air, not a single Belgian flag.
Now I'm a native French speaking Belgian and have nothing against Flemish speaking Belgians and my Dutch is actually quite good, but I find it very scary that the future Belgian prime minister will be him. Second Flemish party is the Vlaams Belang, a fascist party proning flemish independence, a police-state, immigration laws... etc.
The future of Belgium has never looked so dark.
^ on the picture above
Yves Leterme is hidden behind the flowers, it was just to highlight the nationalist flags. Here is a better picture of him:
http://www.standaard.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2007/06/11/leterme07.jpg
would you trust this man?
what was his speech?
his speach was nothing special
Thank you... bla bla bla ... i will keep my promises ... bla bla bla
He needs to keep it low-key to become prime minister. But when you look at the room of militants all yellow and black with lion flags high in the air, it's just scary. It looks like a Vlaams Belang rally. I do not trust him at all.
:S
i really don't know that much about Belgium.
Where's Belgium?
...
it's a little known
middle-asian state next to uzbekistan
Sounds nice.
Why the division?
Do the flemish-speaking parts of the country feel they get a rough deal or something?
isn't it like the ones in spain?
oh god, i've had a mind blank. ETA. etc.
Probably
But unless the culture of one region is radically and historically different from the rest of the country, I've never understood why people care about this kind of thing.
You'd think people would get over it. Maybe they're bored.
The flemish side is a lot wealthier
than the french side at the moment. They think that the Walloons are just profiting from their hard work through the nationalized social security system. This is encouraged by stupid as fuck politicians claiming things like "Every three years every flemish household pays a car to a french household!", which is complete bullshit but is pretty effective to convince braindead people. On top of that, parts of the french speaking part are perceived as stupid slackers (and believe me there is a lot of evidence and daily examples to support this).
What they forget to say is all through 1830 - 1965 it was the other way around. But did the french fight for independance from these poor flemish people living off their hard work? No they just oppressed them and forced them to learn french :-D (best idea ever!)
Things are complicated
what?
erm
exactly
I guess
most countries have regional differences in wealth (North/South here) but when there's a language difference it's easy for people/politicians to get territorial about it.
add to that
an official "language boarder" to get some territorial pissings, a lot of institutions so people get confused over who's responsible for what (including the powers themselves) and more religiousness in the north leading to bigger cultural differences and you've got yourself a wining mix.
For those interested
Wikipedia has a pretty good article on how Belgian institutions work (with a little drawing so you don't have to read much)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium
The president of the flemish socialist party
has resigned due to the very poor election results. This is sad I liked the guy.
The only reason they lost is because they weren't aggressive enough towards the french speaking part.
Cue new president forgetting what the socialist party stands for and taking a strong position.
i haven't really followed the elections here at all....
all i know is that my écolo neighbour got elected! high five to him.
...
What does that mean for us?
I went to Bruges two weeks ago
I fell off a barstool and slept in a doorway. It was nice.
Does this help?
oh joy...
I'm probably moving there at the start of next year. Desperately trying to learn Flemish at the moment because I've been warned that the worst thing I can do is speak French in the Flemish speaking part.
So what are his "promises"?
Cut back the welfare state?
I always find it strange that political parties with Christian in their name seem to have the least Christian ideas...
in my opinion
the man called Jesus that "Christians" claim to follow, was a revolutionary socialist. Being right wing and Christian to me seems like a contridiction...
^
You can always just speak english in the flemish part.
Honestly, if you're moving to Brussels or Wallonia, learning dutch will be pretty much a waste of time.
Unless of course you just enjoy learning languages and things!
All I know about Leterme is that he seems to be massively anti-Wallonia.
Quote from his Wikipedia page:
"But apparently, the francophones are not in an intellectual state for learning Dutch, therefore the prolongation of this exceptional status."
hmmmm." when talking about francophones living in flemish communes.
it will definitely be the Flemish speaking part
around Ghent.
I always think it's increadibly rude to be in a country and expect people to speak English to you. I might have to fall back on that though, since Flemish seems a wee bit difficult! Feel I should at least TRY!
Ah, if you're living in Flanders then
definitely learn dutch. I was only saying you shouldn't bother learning dutch because I assumed you'd be moving to Brussels! Sorry...
Dutch is fairly easy to learn, as it's very, very similar to English (but the pronunciation... isn't). I studied it on and off for two years, and I'm alright at it.
haha...yeah
it's all the chhhs and rolling rs that are getting me at the moment. Reassuring to know that it's easier than it seems - thanks!
yeah dutch isn't that hard
and Flemish people will be so happy that someone wants to learn their stupid language (sorry I'm kind of upset that more than 50% of Flanders has voted for autonomist/separatist parties)