Doug Mataconis · · 2 comments

It has been eight months and eleven days since Belgium’s parliamentary elections and they still haven’t been able to form a government, but Belgians don’t seem to mind:

Belgians are marking 249 days without a government Thursday — a figure that they are treating as a world record.

Day to day the crisis pits the leaders of six million Dutch-speaking Flemings against those of 4.5 million French speakers, but people from across the country are putting aside their differences to celebrate the occasion.

In Dutch-speaking Ghent, organizers hope 249 people will strip naked to mark the days of the crisis as part of a party expected to draw thousands. There will be free fries, Belgium’s beloved national dish, in Leuven and lots of Belgian beer in the French-speaking student town of Louvain-la-Neuve.

“Finally world champion,” the usually serious De Standaard newspaper proclaimed in the headline of its Thursday edition, tongue firmly in cheek.

“Of course it is serious that we have no federal government,” Kris Peeters, the minister-president of Flanders, said in an interview. “But on the other hand, I appreciate very much the humour of certain actions.”