"Our politicians are heroes," joked Edmund Cocquyt, a Flemish connoisseur of bars who is making an inventory of every pub in Flanders. "We're proud of this. Finally we can send out a positive message about Belgium – my country is the world record-holder."
Remember Iraq
topped the global league table for a mere three months...
The Belgians have a talent for laughing at themselves. Which is just as well as the country's bickering political class is its biggest joke.
The flashmobs, pranks, parties, and stunts were organised using the now established motor of spontaneous political activism – social networking sites Facebook and Twitter – but with a key difference. While protesters from Minsk to Cairo mobilise online to try to bring down hated governments, in Belgium the campaign is aimed at getting a government.So Thursday night's "people's festival" in Ghent, a large street party in honour of eight government-free months, with its spoof world championship ceremony, was accompanied by stunts in Brussels and Antwerp, Leuven and Liege in what turned into a Red Nose day aimed at shaming a cynical political elite.
On a more serious note....
The absence of a central government has been mitigated by the fact that power is heavily decentralised in Belgium. Local and regional government now enjoy greater legitimacy than the federal government in Brussels and they continue to function.
But foreign policy, defence, national budget and debt issues are piling up, handled in an ad hoc manner by a provisional prime minister who took a hammering at last year's election and has no mandate. And the lack of a proper central government means there is less glue holding the estranged halves of the country together.
Source: Guardian.co.uk.
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