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In Flanders both coalition parties (liberals and socialist) lose more than expected.

Ultra-right-wing 'Vlaams belang' grows a bit.
Greens over treshold of 5% again.

Surprise event:  newcomer the 'lijst Dedecker' (a brake away from the liberals) over treshold so far.
 

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

First results from Belgium's federal elections in Flanders show a resurgent Christian democracy with losses for the two government parties, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's Flemish liberals and and Mr Vande Lanotte's Flemish socialists. These are very partial results but the trend is clear.

Du côté francophone, les résultats sont très disparates

flandersnews.be - A neck-and-neck race

The socialists have long been all-powerful in Wallonia. However, recent scandals involving socialists in cities such as Charleroi and Namur have served to dent the party's showing in the polls.

Nevertheless, early indications show that the socialists are down just a couple of percent with the liberals up by a few percentage points on the last federal elections in 2003.

The Christian democrats appear to be doing less well than was predicted in recent opinion polls, but are up slightly on 2003. Meanwhile, the greens appear to be making up some of the ground lost at the last federal election.

The far-right Front National is just under the 5% threshold.

General conclusion :  Socialists are the big losers.
Centrum christian democrats are the big winners in Flanders, but their Walloon counterpart remains status-quo.

Greens win a bit, probably not enough to weigh on the government formation.

Sigh, we are going to have very long negotiations with the three big families, where local issues (especially federalisation) will dominate.
The European project ?    Huh ?

FLANDERS

WALLONIA

• higher for the Christian Dems than in the latest opinion polls (31.6% instead of 29.9%).
  
• Open VLD loses less than predicted (at 18.4% instead of 17.7%).
  
• The SP.a loses much more than predicted (at 16.3% instead of 19.4%)
  
• Vlaams Belang gains less than predicted (at 18.9% instead of 21.4%
  
• Groen! gains less than predicted (6.1% instead of 7.7%)
  
• Surprisingly, the centre-right seperatist Lijst Dedecker seems to make the 5% threshold (at 6.4% instead of the prediced 3.8%).

Yves Leterme, frontrunner of the CD&V and probably the next premier, is now minister-president of the Flemish government.

So, he can't be both.  Other regional ministers are important too in this federal elections and will make the move to the federal government.

So we will see not only negotiations between parties, but also inside the party's for all those functions.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

CD&V - N-VA     7
Vlaams Belang     6
Open VLD    4
SP.a - SPIRIT     4
Groen!       1
Lijst Dedecker     1

At 98% of Leuven counted, the 7 seats go this way:

CD&V - N-VA     2
Vlaams Belang     1
Open VLD    2
SP.a - SPIRIT     2
Groen!       0
Lijst Dedecker     0

By my rough guess a shift of the second seat from SP.a to CD&V is still possible on the remaining 2% of the vote (difference in terms of votes/seat in favour of SP.a now at 0.2 percentage points).

Very different coalitions are possible to form a majority.

But the cartel partner of the winning CD&V, the NVA has very strong demands for more autonomy for the regions. But to pass legislation for this demands a 2/3 majority.

So we expect very long negotiations.....

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

This is the final result, all votes counted.

What happens next?

• First what happend already this morning: - King accepts PM's resignation

  The Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (Flemish liberal) this morning tendered his resignation to King Albert. The King has accepted the Prime Minister's resignation.

• In the coming hours the Belgian monarch will be meeting a host of other top Belgian politicians.

• The talks should lead to the appointment of an "informateur", a politician who can sound out the parties and suggest who is best placed to form Belgium's next coalition government.

• The Flemish centrist alliance of Christian democrats and nationalists is now the largest political force in the country.

• A Christian democrat/liberal coalition is now seen as the most likely outcome of coalition formation talks.

• If Mr Leterme wants to press ahead with state reforms a government with a two-thirds majority is required. This could only be supplied by a Christian democrat/liberal/socialist coalition.