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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Photos Sitemap Belgium votes amid fears of a national split AFP - Monday, June 14 Send IM Story Print BRUSSELS (AFP) - – Belgian voters voted in legislative elections on Sunday, with a predicted strong showing for Flemish separatists hiking concerns of moves to split the country along its linguistic faultline. The independence-minded NVA and its 39-year-old Bart De Wever can expect some 25 percent of the vote in Belgium's richer, Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north of the country, according to the pre-vote polls, Add fellow separatist groups and the vote regionally stacks up at 40 percent, the kind of figure to send shivers down the spines of federalist politicians in the poorer French-speaking region of Wallonia to the south. There the socialists were the pre-vote favourites with opinion polls giving them at least 30 percent of the vote there. "A turning point for Belgium," opined the Derniere Heure daily. Inside an advert for a new 'A Team' action film was headed jokingly "The only team that could still save Belgium!" Despite the tensions, the local Belga news agency reported no untoward incidents at polling stations in the morning. However, at one of the flashpoint Flemish suburbs of Brussels a group of 20 protesters brandished banners calling for "a Flemish president" just as EU president and former Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy arrived to cast his vote. An electoral breakthrough by the Flemish radicals could lead to lengthy political horse-trading before any stable coalition government can be formed in a country where only the Brussels capital region is officially bilingual. That leaves the prospect of Belgium, which prides itself on hosting the European Union's headquarters, assuming the rotating EU presidency next month without a fully functioning government itself. It took months after the last legislative elections in 2007 for a five-party coalition to emerge. Analysts fear any duplication could lead to further radicalisation and bring the spectre of an eventual split into stark focus. There have been three prime ministers and four governments since the last general election, with the two main communities consistently failing to agree on the further decentralisation of federal powers amid very differing economic interests. The complex situation is given further uncertainty by the large number of voters who, according to the opinion polls, had yet to decide who to vote for in the run up to the election. Voting is obligatory for the 150 parliamentary seats in the country of 10.5 million people, 60 percent Flemish, where no political party operates nationally. The early elections were made necessary when the previous coalition of Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme crumbled in April over special rights afforded to the francophone minority in Flemish suburbs of Brussels. De Wever, who says he is not interested in a national top job, does not see himself as a revolutionary. He believes the country, where the regions are already devolved, will "slowly but surely, very gently disappear," as more powers ebb away from the federal authorities and to the European Union. Paradoxically the breakthrough of the Flemish separatists could open the way for Belgium's first francophone premier since the 1970s, with the socialists emerging as the biggest political 'family' in the country and Walloon Elio Di Rupo picking up the reins. The Walloon leaders could show more flexibility as far as allowing further autonomy for the Flemish is concerned, in return for guarantees that the Belgian welfare state, and its financing, will continue. Leterme's administration is set to remain in charge of day-today affairs for as long as it takes to form a new coalition. Last time it took six months. The polling stations will close at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) with the first results expected soon afterwards. 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