Belgium Forms Coalition Government, Ending Standoff

By STEPHEN CASTLE

BRUSSELS — Belgium finally got a new government on Thursday, after a nine-month political crisis that prompted speculation that the country might split, but many voters say that the new five-party coalition may be too weak to last.

Yves Leterme, leader of the Flemish Christian Democrats and the winner of elections last June, was sworn in as prime minister by King Albert II.

After the elections, warring Flemish and French-speaking parties were not able to agree on a coalition government. The dispute was so acrimonious that it prompted fears that Belgium, formed in 1830, might divide along linguistic lines.

Although those concerns have subsided for the time being, polls indicated that confidence in the new coalition was extremely low even before it took office.

One recent opinion poll of a representative sample of 1,027 people commissioned by the broadcasters RTL and VTM found that almost two out of three of those surveyed thought the government would fall within the next three years.

After the elections, Mr. Leterme, 47, tried to form a government but failed after the collapse of complex negotiations. In desperation, the king turned in December to the departing Flemish prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, to lead a caretaker administration.

A division of powers is at the center of the political crisis. Many functions of the state are already carried out by regional authorities in Flanders in the Dutch-speaking north, and Wallonia in the poorer, French-speaking south.

But the Flemish parties want more economic power for the regions, and that has provoked fears in Wallonia that subsidies from the richer part of the country will dry up.

In most respects Belgium has two parallel political systems with different parties fielding candidates from the two biggest populations and appealing to voters through separate newspapers and television channels.

The coalition agreement was reached Tuesday after 21 hours of talks. The new government includes the Flemish and French-speaking Christian Democrats, the Flemish and French-speaking liberals and the French-speaking socialists. The more nationalist Flemish parties remain outside the government, but one is expected to back it. Because the new coalition represents a broad range of political opinion, and more of the big parties are inside the coalition than outside, Mr. Leterme almost leads a government of national unity. The top jobs in the Foreign, Interior and Finance Ministries have not changed hands.

But the agreement does not cover proposed changes regarding the issue of regional powers. The parties are committed to reaching a settlement by July.

“It’s not a new or fresh team, it represents continuity in managing the current situation,” said Caroline Sägesser, a political analyst at Crisp, a sociopolitical research organization in Brussels. “The real negotiation on the constitutional settlement will take place elsewhere.”

Much rests on the performance of Mr. Leterme who, as the son of a Flemish mother and a Walloon father raised in an agricultural region near Belgium’s border with France, ought to be able to straddle the linguistic divide.

He is bilingual and, like many of his countrymen, has a passion for cycling. But having made his career in Flemish politics, where few votes are won by reaching out to French-speakers, he is widely distrusted in the southern part of the country. He has not served as a minister in the federal government and has little experience negotiating with leaders from other linguistic groups.

French-language newspapers have in recent days unearthed a number of comments made by Mr. Leterme that have been taken as slights by French-speakers.

In 2006 he told the French-language newspaper La Libre Belgique that “French-speakers are not intellectually equipped to learn Dutch.”

Last year, on the country’s National Day, he was filmed singing “La Marseillaise,” France’s national anthem, instead of Belgium’s anthem, “La Brabançonne,” in what was interpreted as a dig at French-speakers.

He also has been criticized for mistakenly referring to National Day, July 21, as observing the proclamation of the Constitution instead of commemorating the inauguration of Leopold I, Belgium’s first king, in 1831.

Political analysts point out that Mr. Leterme’s predecessor, Mr. Verhofstadt, was also once viewed with acute suspicion in Wallonia. “Leterme has potential to become more popular in Wallonia as people get to know him better and discover that their worst fears are not realized,” Ms. Sägesser said. “But he is starting from a very low base.”

The winner of last June’s elections, Mr. Leterme can claim the backing of 800,000 voters in a country with a population of about 10.5 million. Governments are elected under a proportional system in multimember constituencies where political parties present lists of candidates. Voting is compulsory in Belgium.