Early results from local elections across Belgium on Sunday showed Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's ruling Liberal-Socialist national coalition taking major losses less than a year ahead of national elections, AP reported. Verhofstadt's Dutch-speaking Liberal Democrats were taking hits across many towns across Flanders in northern Belgium, according to early results and exit polls. Meanwhile, exit polls in the Socialist stronghold of industrial Charleroi, in the southern, French-language region of Wallonia, predicted that the ruling Socialists would lose nine of their 30 seats and their absolute majority in City Hall. Verhofstadt is keen to stem major losses ahead of national elections expected in either May or June and to keep in place his fragile coalition for a run at a third term in office.
