Linguistic ability or political qualities?

Writer Thomas Gunzig takes an ironic look at a comment made by a Brussels-based Flemish-speaking regional minister. She said: "Better to be an incompetent bilingual Flemish speaker than an ultra-competent monolingual French speaker." "Personally, I'd like to have a good, intelligent prime minister, with some sense of humour, a conscientious commitment to the 'res publica', a humane person but also a technocrat, who understands Belgium and the world, is determined, free of political and electoralist ulterior motives and fears, who is concerned with the common good, social rights, and dreams of progress. People will say, all that's a minimum. ... So, if you find someone like that, and even if he/she speaks only Icelandic, Arameic, or Lingala, that's fine, I'll take that person. Because a good prime minister is such a rare breed, that I'd willingly give him/her subtitles."

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