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Old June 13th, 2010 #18
Chad Wentworth
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Belgium's Flemish separatist party, the New Flemish Alliance (NVA), has won more than 20% of the vote in parliamentary elections, according to early unofficial results.

If confirmed, the NVA would have the largest share of the vote, bringing the country closer to a split.

The NVA wants to more fully divide the country between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia.

But the party would have to form a coalition with Wallonian parties.

Such a coalition might force NVA leader Bart De Wever to tone down his Flemish nationalist rhetoric.

"The NVA has won the election today," the party's leader Bart De Wever told supporters.

"We stand before you with a party that has some 30% [of the Flemish vote]."

Flemish media projected the NVA would take 30 of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament, up from the current eight.

The French-speaking Socialists were expected to gain six seats for a total of 26, Reuters news agency said.

If the count holds, the result would be a significant loss for Premier Yves Leterme's coalition of Christian Democrats, Liberals and Socialists.

His government collapsed in April over a long-standing dispute about voting rights for Dutch-speakers around Brussels and the election was brought forward by one year.
Separate lives

A split bringing an end to Belgium would not happen immediately.

Belgian governments are required to be made up of a bi-lingual coalition of at least four parties.


Language row looms over election

Much of public and political life in Belgium is dominated by bitter debates around language and the allocation of public resources.

Government aid to poorer Wallonia, home to four million French speakers, has caused resentment among Belgium's 6.5 million Flemish majority, correspondents say.

Until now separatist parties have been on the fringes of political debate.

But Mr De Wever, 39, has pushed his party into the mainstream over the last three years while the other parties have been locked in a political stalemate.

The country also faces economic problems.

During the last three years the national debt has grown to unmanageable proportions.

The country's ratio of debt to gross domestic product is behind only Greece and Italy in the Eurozone, analysts say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10303179.stm