Belgian PM Verhofstadt heads for election defeat: Opinion poll

THE Belgian general election campaign entered its last week yesterday with Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and his Flemish Liberal Democrats (VLD) set for a heavy defeat, the latest opinion poll showed.

The Christian Democrats were leading in the northern Flemish region and the Socialists were ahead in the French-speaking south ahead of Sunday's election, according to the poll published in the Le Soir newspaper yesterday.

Verhofstadt's party — also known in this campaign as Open VLD — was just fourth among Flanders voters with 17.3 per cent of intentions polled, compared to the 25.4 per cent it won at the last federal elections in 2003.

Both the Flemish Christian Democrat alliance and the francophone Socialists are commanding around 30 per cent of the vote in their regions, according to the opinion poll, conducted jointly with state RTBF television.

Voters in Belgium — where no party straddles the north-south divide between mostly Dutch and French speakers — will cast their ballots on Sunday to choose a new federal parliament.

Following the election, political horse-trading is likely to lead to the creation of a coalition government.

The Franco-Dutch divide was amply highlighted last December when a state television channel announced, in a spoof programme, that the Flemish region had declared independence and that Belgium was no more.

To back up the report during prime time evening viewing, RTBF showed "live" footage of trams blocked at the new "border" and interviewed real-life politicians welcoming or denouncing the unilateral move of independence by the Flemish parliament.

Around six million of Belgium's 10.4 million people live in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders with 3.5 million in French-speaking Wallonia and one million in largely francophone Brussels.

Parties in Flanders, the wealthiest part of the country, are demanding wider political powers, and notably want to manage their own employment policy, which is currently in the hands of the federal government.

Yves Leterme, minister-president of the Dutch-speaking Flemish region, is the favourite to become prime minister with his Christian Democrat coalition garnering 29.7 per cent support in the opinion poll.

It is a foregone conclusion that the next prime minister will be Flemish. The last francophone head of government, Paul Vanden Boeynants, served for just six months in 1978-79 in a transition government.

Second in the Flemish region was the extreme-right independence-seeking Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party, with 21.6 per cent support.

The Socialists in French-speaking Wallonia, led by regional government head Elio Di Rupo, were credited with 31.4 per cent. In second place in Wallonia, five percentage points behind the Socialists, were the liberal Reform Movement (MR) of Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders.AFP