Leterme himself will not be returning to Wetstraat 16, the office of the prime minister. Before the elections were even officially announced, his party, CD&V, said he would be leading the list for the chamber in West Flanders, his home province. Leading the national senate list will be party chair Marianne Thyssen.

As Anja Otte explains in this week’s “Fifth Column”, Leterme may have jumped to avoid being pushed, and the withdrawal means he will not face the indignity of seeing his impressive vote tally from 2007 vanish like mist over the polders.

In Belgian elections, parties present lists of candidates for the Chamber of Representatives on a provincial level. For elections to the senate, however, a single national list is presented by each party. This is where the nationwide campaign takes place, and where the big numbers are found. It was as a senate candidate when Leterme won 800,000 preference votes. Thyssen, 53, is a lawyer who studied at the Catholic University of Leuven and has been a member of the European Parliament since 1991, as well as party chair since May of 2008. She lives in Flemish Brabant. As party chair, she will also have the responsibility of deciding who gets to lead the lists in the provinces. Other than Leterme in West Flanders, none of the positions has yet been filled.

Over at Open VLD, the party which triggered the crisis that led to the elections, Alexander De Croo will lead the senate list, though in his case it is unlikely to lead to Wetstraat 16. It will, however, cement his position as party leader. In the provinces, the party can field such heavyweights as Patrick Dewael, speaker of the parliament, vicepremier Guy Vanhengel and interior minister Annemie Turtelboom. The leading light of the socialist party SP.A looks like it will be either party chair Caroline Gennez or former minister Johan Vande Lanotte. In the other parties, nothing was yet certain as Flanders Today went to press.

On the French-speaking side, the socialist party PS stands a good chance of winning the most seats in the chamber after the election. That puts Elio Di Rupo in a strong position to become prime minister. Di Rupo, 59, was born in Mons to Italian parents, one of seven children. He was educated as a chemist and worked for a time at the University of Leeds in England.

Who becomes prime minister is anyone’s guess. CD&V won 30 seats in the 2007 election, having formed a cartel with NV-A, making it the largest party and leading to Leterme being asked to become prime minister.

Going into this election, CD&V (without NV-A) and the Frenchspeaking MR of Didier Reynders are equal, with 23 seats each, but losses are forecast. The socialist party PS, on the other hand, starts from the 20 seats won in 2007, but the party’s fortunes are rising. Whether they will rise sufficiently to keep Marianne Thyssen from making history remains to be seen.