Leterme replaces Van Rompuy as Belgian PM

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme was named Belgium's prime minister on Wednesday to guide the country through what is expected to be a period of political instability in the linguistically divided country.

King Albert nominated Leterme, 49, to replace Herman Van Rompuy, who was appointed president of the European Union last week. He and his cabinet will be sworn in later on Wednesday and parliament is expected to give its approval this week.

Belgian media were sceptical about the chances of Leterme's second term in office being more stable than his first.

"Can he do better?" was the headline of French language La Libre Belgique newspaper on Wednesday. A poll by top-selling Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws showed a majority of its readers believed Leterme would not succeed.

Leterme was the clear winner of the 2007 federal election on a platform of devolving more powers to the regions, but failed to win over French-speaking parties, which fear such change would be a step towards the break-up of the country.

He struggled for nine months to form a government, which then lurched for another nine months from one crisis to another.

He resigned last December over alleged political meddling in the break-up of Belgo-Dutch financial services group Fortis. He has since been absolved and has been Belgium's foreign minister since July.

By contrast, Van Rompuy's 11 months in charge have seen no sign of the internal tensions that had prompted media speculation the country might split.