Spare a thought for the hapless Belgians when voting

AS Irish voters mull over who to vote for and who to punish in European and local elections on Friday, they should spare a thought for the hapless Belgian citizenry.

Voting is compulsory so the turnout is usually around 96%. Anybody failing to turn up to cast his or her ballot faces a fine that begins at e28 for a first offence and rises to a few hundred euro.

A serial offender can be struck off the register and deprived of their vote for 10 years and while this might suit those not interested in turning out to vote, it can be held against anybody looking for a public service job.

Sick certs, travel receipts and the like are required to explain a failure to vote.

The next hurdle is trying to understand the system that tries to ensure fair play for the two main language groups, French and Dutch.

The Flems suffered at the hands of the ruling French speakers for decades being unable to get a government job or have their children educated in Dutch.

That has changed but it has left both of them with something of a siege mentality when it comes to their language.

The country is divided into Dutch and French speaking regions, with a small German speaking area.

Only Francophones can run for office in the French area and their literature and posters must be in French, while the same rules apply to Dutch speakers in Flanders.

But there are border regions where communes have a sizeable proportion of speakers of the other language, and these are often smouldering tinderboxes where massive rows break out regularly.

With municipal, regional and European voting taking place next Sunday, the old debate has erupted again quite spectacularly.

Three Dutch-speaking communes also distributed voting literature in French as a majority of residents are French speakers, contrary to an edict from the Flemish interior minister.

The mayors did the same thing three years ago for local elections and the minister tried to deprive them of their jobs. Human rights bodies condemned his actions at the time and the three continued to work, although without the official title.

In some other regions with a sizeable minority of French speakers the authorities have refused to allow French speaking politicians to put their posters on the official billboards – the only place that posters can be legally posted in Belgium.

Posters erected in defiance have been papered over and there have been objections also to the French speakers campaigning.

Some other predominantly Dutch-speaking communes have abolished billboards altogether so the only place for posters is in shop windows with the agreement of the owner.

The rows have become so bad that some Dutch speaking parties are boycotting the European Parliament elections altogether.

The only glimmer of hope for the future lies with the creation of the country’s first bilingual party that is straddling both linguistic communities in Brussels. Called ProBruxsel – “Brux” representing the French spelling of the capital city and “sel” the Dutch.

Once the voters surmount the linguistic rows they then have to do battle with the ballot papers of course.

In Brussels all voting is by machine but most of the rest of the country uses paper ballots.

There are hundreds of parties and thousands of candidates and four methods of showing your preference – ranging from a simple vote for the party of your choice to indicating which are your favourite candidates within each party list.

In the end there are so many parties that none get sufficient votes to get into power. They have to form coalitions, doing deals that frequently hinge on issues connected with language.