Rosio Pavoris

A poll by Het Laatste Nieuws found that if elections were held today, Yves Leterme would receive a hundred thousand fewer votes than he did in the June elections. Considering that he had 796,521 of them (not counting the votes to his party; voters can vote either for a party or for individuals within a party, here), I’d say that’s pretty significant.

(Incidentally, 796,521 was almost a record high. I think only one person in the history of Belgia got more individual votes than that. If it seems low to you, keep in mind that since he’s a Flemish politician running for a Flemish party, only voters in Flanders can vote for him (about six million people live in Flanders, though I’m not sure how many of those are over 18), and most people tend to vote for parties, not individuals.)

The main reason, apparently, is that the formation of the new government still isn’t over yet. He also essentially just sent away Jean-Luc Dehaene, one of our former (and still quite popular) Prime Ministers, who was appointed by the King to make sure things proceeded smoothly (presumably because he managed to resolve the apparently irresolvable political crisis in 1987 as an informateur, in much the same circumstances (”Sire, geef me honderd dagen”; it ended up taking 106, but it was still regarded as miraculous)).
Much of the reason things are moving so slowly is the fact that half of the people in these negotations (well, a little under) are, obviously, Walloon, and Leterme is at this point notorious for his contempt for Wallonia. Apparently this contempt wasn’t a real factor in losing him those votes, though.

Either way, if Leterme does end up Prime Minister (which is pretty much inevitable, though the way he’s been going, I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was asked to leave), I’d bet he’ll only serve one term. People tend to have a short memory for things that happen during a term, but they tend to remember what happened at the start and at the end.