Political parties in Belgium Political parties in Belgium Belgium is a federal state with a multi-party political system, with numerous parties who factually have no chance of gaining power alone, and therefore must work with each other to form coalition governments. Almost all Belgian political parties are divided into linguistic groups, either Dutch-speaking parties (see also political parties in Flanders), Francophone parties or Germanophone parties. The Flemish parties operate in Flanders and in the Brussels-Capital Region. The Francophone parties operate in Wallonia and in the Brussels-Capital Region. There are also parties operating in the comparatively small German-speaking community. From the creation of the Belgian
2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. The President asked the present government to continue until a new government can be formed, and held talks with the five political parties represented in the Althing. After these discussions, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir of the Social Democratic Alliance and Steingrímur J. Sigfússon of the Left-Green Movement were asked by the President to negotiate the formation of a new coalition government. Such a coalition would be five seats short of an overall majority in the Althing, but the Progressive Party (seven seats) was expected to support the coalition without actually joining the government. Neither party leader became Prime