Belgium Marks One Year Without Full Government

Why, what a crazy notion that is. Surely nobody actually believes that.

Hahahaha…

>_>

<_<

I was gonna say that…lol

Being from Belgium, here’s my view on the matter.

The winners of the elections of last year were the N-VA(National Flemish Alliance) on the Flemish side and the PS(Socialist party) on the Walloon side. For the Flemish side, this is unprecedented. A nationalist party has *never* won, in some parts of the country getting up to 50% of the votes. On the Walloon side, the PS is back from never being gone. They’ve ruled their part of the country for over 30 years now.

Belgium has 7 different levels of governments.
1 The federal government, based in Brussels.
The three language communities:
2 the Flemish Community (Dutch-speaking);
3 the French Community (French-speaking);
4 the German-speaking Community.
The three regions:
5 the Flemish Region, subdivided into five provinces;
6 the Walloon Region, subdivided into five provinces;
7 the Brussels-Capital Region.

It’s a gigantic clusterfuck.

Anyways, the N-VA had a lot of points it went to the voters with. The result was obvious, most the voters agreed.
After a year, we still don’t have a government. This is because there is no agreement between the winning parties on both sides.

The media would have you believe this is because the N-VA doesn’t want a government, that they’re unreasonable, etc…

They’ll tell you everything, but they’ll never say it’s the PS that’s being unreasonable. They’ll never blame the Walloon part of the country, while Walloon media is claiming that all who support N-VA are holocaust deniers and should be put on a boat and sunk in the middle of the ocean.(Literally quoted from a newspaper).

The N-VA won the elections on Flemish side because they promised to end the injustice imposed by the Walloon side. Traditional parties will tell you this is made up, make-belief, it’s all not true and that we, the Flemish, are actually intolerant towards the Walloons for ever suggesting they’re sucking us dry.

5.5 billion euros per year goes from the Flanders government to the Walloon government. Mandatory. And the Walloon part of the federal government has tons of “special procedures” they can call in to action if anyone suggests tampering with this money-stream, putting any vote back by at least a year. Procedures approved by the traditional Flanders parties, who now all get their part of the cake. A very small part, but a part non the less.

N-VA wants this to stop. The Walloons should learn to take care of themselves instead of hanging on the money-crane. That and more, is what the N-VA went to the negotiations with. And from day 1, they were told it would never be accepted. The Walloon parties have stubornly refused to budge on every single point. And then the media calls the N-VA “incapable of making a compromise”. N-VA refuses to stand down, because the people sent a powerful message at the elections. The people said: we want these points implemented. So they went for it. And the Walloon side refuses to budge, because if they do, it will hurt them financially, because of their gigantic dependency on that 5.5 billion euros per year they get from Flanders.

And every day, the media tries to make the N-VA politicians look like they’re incompetent, unwilling, greedy, bossy, etc… while it’s actually the PS that refuses to budge. But because there’s is not 1 TV-station, radio-station or newspaper who has chosen not to partake in operation “destroy the N-VA because if they win it might hurt our bonusses”, public opinion is shifting against the N-VA, who is doing it’s best to give us the feature we deserve.

The PS and the other Walloon parties look at the N-VA plans and simply say: “nope, not gonna happen” and they’re standing united, just waiting for public opinion on the N-VA to change, so they can go back to their old, money grubbing ways. The N-VA is the first real threat to their elitist power-hold on the country, and they’re trying to make them look as bad as possible.

It sounds so strangely familiar to American partisan politics…but with language and national identity thrown into the mix. The level of dysfunction caused by internal bickering, the wild accusations thrown about to distract from more serious and legitimate issues. People truly are the same the world over…with only the slightest difference of culture marking them as unique in any given case.

Yes. Exactly. Sounds just like Rep vs Dem. Makes one wonder who really runs the media with it being portrayed so strikingly similar across the world. The battle of good vs. evil. I think that has got to be the huge change the whole world is enduring right now, if there is a big change to come just because of the anticipation of 2012. There is no universal good or universal evil, which is another reason why the two-party system is a failure. The whole production, the act, doesn’t even look real anymore…change the lights, the scenery, the actors, the plot……

Breaking Iraq’s record of 289 days without government? Yes
Breaking Ireland’s record of 6 centuries without government? No.