Belgium shaken as nationalists win polls

BRUSSELS - Belgians awoke Monday to confirmation of the news that the Dutch-speaking nationalist party N-VA has won a crushing victory in snap elections, raising fears that months of political instability will follow.

N-VA’s victory in the northern province of Flanders was matched by sweeping gains by the Socialist Party (PS) in the southern, French-speaking province of Wallonia.

Conflict over power-sharing between the two provinces had brought down the last government in April, a year before its term.

The two political parties have opposing views on many points of policy, but are now expected to start coalition talks.

“The cannibal: N-VA eats classical parties up, doomed to work with (PS leader) Elio Di Rupo,” the Dutch-language daily Het Laatste Nieuws proclaimed.

Final results from the national electoral commission released early Monday showed that the N-VA had garnered 17.4 percent of the national vote, almost four points clear of the PS (13.7 percent) and far ahead of its main Flemish rival CD&V (10.85 percent).

N-VA’s share of seats in the 150-member parliament surged to 27, up from eight after the last elections in 2007. The PS, meanwhile, snagged 26 seats, up from 20.

The two parties jointly hold more than a third of the parliament, making it widely assumed that they will have to conduct coalition talks.

N-VA leader Bart De Wever and Di Rupo “hold the fate of Belgium in their hands,” said Beatrice Delvaux, chief editor of the French-language daily Le Soir.

The talks are widely expected to be complex and long-lasting.

Time, however, is critical as Belgium is set to take over the European Union’s rotating presidency July one, leaving just two weeks for the negotiations if the country is to avoid taking the EU’s helm with a caretaker administration.