Thread: After the election

Originally Posted by Bruno

Generally speaking, the biggest hurdle for multiparty systems are the coalition negotiations.

Recently those negotiations here took about month. I thought it was pretty long time until i remembered reading about the ones going on in Belgium

Originally Posted by Sailor

Recently those negotiations here took about month. I thought it was pretty long time until i remembered reading about the ones going on in Belgium

Dude... don't get me started.
Just yesterday, the talks pretty much blew up again. They're talking about having new elections, but that is not going to help. If anything, it will make things worse because by now, the population is pretty polarized.

For the laymen: Belgium consists of 2 states (actually, more than that but it's already complex enough and there are 2 big ones). One side (mine) produces the majority of the GNP, and we also pay the majority of the taxes. However, the other side receives proportionally more than they produce. We are fed up with this, and my state wants to cut back into that difference. The other side doesn't want this because they like things as they are now. There are also other issues playing which have been building as long as Belgium has existed, and which now are coming to a boil. Explaining all this would take us too far. Let's just say that for practical purposes, it started here, and has been going on ever since.

In the past, our politicians used to dance around this issue, but now the population has spoken very clearly in the vote, and the coalition talks are held by people from the 2 states who are almost the polar opposites on this issue. And this time, my state is not likely to back down It will be political suicide for the coalition partners from my state who flinch first. In fact, my state would possibly seccede by now if it could.

There is one huge, honking problem though.
Our constitution is set up in a way that requires a coalition consisting of a majority representation on both sides (meaning of the resulting coalition, the representatives of each state have to represent > 50%) or even a 2/3 majority in cases where a constitutional reformation is desired. For us to legally seccede, we need that majority, but we'll never get it because the other states will die. And they know this. And we can't unilaterally declare ourselves independent because the EU will not recognize us in that case, which will be a disaster for our economy. Yet there also cannot be a government without a majority representation of my state.

We are truly deadlocked, and I don't see it getting any better until the politicians of the other state agree to meet ours at least halfway, which so far they don't seem to intend to do.