Well, I’m inclined to vote the Open VLD ticket on Sunday. Their election literature arrived yesterday; they have what look like a sensible enviromental approach on the economy, and the law-n-order stuff which worried me in the summary on De Standaard’s website was simply not there. (So either De Standaard got it wrong, or Open VLD aren’t terribly serious about being hardline on those issues; I’m happy either way.)

Most strikingly, Open VLD are explicitly in favour of the right of same-sex couples to adopt; and this is a campaign promise which can actually be implemented, as we are electing the Flemish parliament which decides these issues in Flanders. Dear reader, would it be possible for a potential party of government (Open VLD held the prime minister’s position from 1999 to 2008) to run on adoption rights for same-sex couples in your country?

(Of course, here in Belgium we’ve had same-sex marriage for years – none of this “civil partnerships” compromising – and the world has failed to end; once you’ve got that far, it’s obviously an anomaly if some married couples can adopt and others can’t.)