So, went and voted this morning, for Annemie Neyts after all, since the gossip is that she is considered too old (at 60!) for national office and so she probably will take up her seat in the European Parliament this time (I was most annoyed when she became a minister instead of an MEP last time). Also there was a young woman from Leuven on the Liberals’ supplementary list so I gave her a vote too. Fun electronic voting; there doesn’t seem to have been an issue here about the security of the system (which may just mean that the Belgians are slower than the Irish to catch onto this problem).

Seems that here in Flanders, the evil Vlaams Blok is up by about the same amount as the Liberals are down. The Greens have won back most but not all of the votes they lost last year. The Christian Democrats (who are boring centrists here) have regained their historical position as largest single party, with the Socialists probably in second place (though Liberals and Blok not far behind if at all).

In Ireland the disappointing headline from the local election results is that Sinn Fein have almost trebled their vote. They still have less than 10%; the gains came directly from Fianna Fail. Fine Gael and Labour appear, incredibly, to have held their ground. PDs and Greens bubbling in the lower reaches, fortunately not quite off the scale. The election in Northern Ireland will be counted tomorrow.

I heard from a friend that the European Parliament is planning a big multimedia presentation this evening from 2230. According to their website they have had everything set up since this morning, so I think I’ll actually head down there for about 2200. Doubt if I’ll see any readers of this journal there though!