Belgium swears in new government 541 days after general election

[paudie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16056514

Apparently Cambodia held the previous record for not being able to form a government.

[Spudulika]

A Belgian colleague here told me that the country was running itself better in this time than for a few years previously. I don't fully believe it, however I wonder why the pressure to get it sorted now.

[paudie]

A Belgian colleague here told me that the country was running itself better in this time than for a few years previously. I don't fully believe it, however I wonder why the pressure to get it sorted now.

I think a new election would have been called very soon if a government hadn't been agreed.

[culloty82]

Also, the whole Flemish/Walloon faultlines would have come closer to the ultimate split if the formation of a national government had proven impossible - the Flemish leader of the largest party was more concerned with regional issues than being PM, so they've ended up with a Walloon PM, even though they're less than 40% of the overall population.

[John83]

Aw, I was rather enjoying their experiment with neo-anarchism.

Incidentally, I heard what paudie said from a Belgian a few months back, so I presume it's right.

[Macy]

A Belgian colleague here told me that the country was running itself better in this time than for a few years previously. I don't fully believe it, however I wonder why the pressure to get it sorted now.
No decisions or changes would be made to public services - things would just plod on. The problem comes if there's stuff that needs a decision. Did the previous executive remain in place in the meantime? i.e. here the last Government was still our executive - and making (in some cases shocking) decisions - until the new Government was formed.

[culloty82]

Yeah, the old PM, Leterme, was the caretaker for the last 18 months, even though he didn't stand at the last election - could you imagine if you'd gridlock like here, and Cowen was still Taoiseach?

[peadar1987]

And the UK were in full panic mode because they didn't have a coalition formed within 3 hours of the results of their last election. Many facepalms were performed by myself and all my friends who had seen PR work perfectly well in other nations.

[Macy]

Yeah, the old PM, Leterme, was the caretaker for the last 18 months, even though he didn't stand at the last election - could you imagine if you'd gridlock like here, and Cowen was still Taoiseach?
I would imagine we would have had another election within a few weeks of the next sitting of the Dail. Although the short time line between the election and the dail sitting was just one of many landmines FF and co laid when they saw the writing on the wall.