Belgium goes a year from elections without government

[bijou]

For the year since a general election on 13 June 2010, Belgium has had no official government. As coalition negotiations have dragged on, the country has had to make do with a caretaker prime minister and cabinet. How long can it continue?

Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme resigned in April last year, but he is still turning up for work.

In fact, by mid-August he will have been a caretaker prime minister for longer than he was an elected leader with a mandate to govern.


This may sound odd - Belgium is after all the home of surrealism - but the oddest thing is that, after one year, there is no solution on the horizon.

Belgians proudly claimed the world record in February, for the country that has spent longest without a government.

A website counted down to the day - 17 February - when the title would be taken from Iraq, which took 289 days to form a government in 2009. The site now proclaims: "Yes, Belgians, we did it!" ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13725277

And yet the world still turns ... 

[Eupher]

Well, there are more important things in Belgian life than a government.

Like Chimay Blue, for example.