De Croo will now tend his resignation to King Philippe, who has the power to reject it at his discretion.
Although it was expected to trail behind nationalist and far-right parties in Flanders, Open VLD has suffered its biggest decline in De Croo’s own constituency of East Flanders, where his list went from 17.85% in 2019 to 10% this time — and less than 7% overall.
Despite polls predicting that the far-right, anti-immigration Vlaams Belang party would become the main political force in the country with 11.5 million inhabitants, the right-wing nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) retained its first spot, with an expected 22% of the votes, according to provisional results provided by the Interior ministry.
Sunday’s results will result in complex negotiations in a country divided by language and deep regional identities. Belgium is split along linguistic lines, with francophone Wallonia in the south and Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, and governments are invariably formed by coalitions made of parties from both regions.
Belgium holds the world record for the longest time needed to form a government, after a ruling coalition was named in December 2021 following a total of 541 days of negotiations.
More than 8 million Belgians voted in what was dubbed ‘Super Sunday’ elections to choose their regional and national representatives and the new European Parliament MEPs.
Source link : https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/10/belgian-pm-de-croo-announces-resignation-after-heavy-election-loss
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Publish date : 2024-06-10 07:00:00
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