The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the monarch completely absent from politics? This happened in 2007-11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2011_Belgian_political_cr...

In Brazil in the 19th century liberal democrats thought a monarch was unnecessary, after 67 years of successful politics under a king. Upon abolition the country devolved into a long succession of military coups and dictatorial governments.

There have obviously been successful countries without monarchy, but it is very risky to say that a figurehead does nothing. Reserve powers are a pretty real restraint.

I think the political situation/crisis in Belgium have little to do with the position of the monarch, and more with the somewhat unique situation of Belgium. It's a small deeply divided country; many of the top parties in the 2019 election participated only in the Dutch or French regions. While regional parties aren't unique to Belgium (e.g. SNP in Scotland), the way the votes are split between the two regions is a pretty big problem, and much of the disagreement stems from which list (Dutch or French) people in BHV could vote. This is an issue that goes back to the country's founding in various forms.

> The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the monarch completely absent from politics?

The monarch appoints "preformateurs" and "formateur" who are elections start talks between people from the different political parties and (try to) form a cabinet, in different stages of the process. That's where he (or possibly she in a few decades, when Filip dies or abdicates and Elisabeth becomes Belgian's first Queen, if that's still a thing then) has by far the most influence in politics.

Some people he shouldn't even have that influence, and I'm inclined to agree. In any case, finding another process for that is probably the most difficult issue to deal with in case we would transform to a pure parliamentary democracy.

Reserve power ... I don't know. I don't think he has enough power for that. Maybe symbolically, maybe that counts for more than I think. Some say the king and/or the whole royal family is one of the few things that still hold Belgium more or less together.

If indeed having a figurehead can protect us from civil war and other kinds of chaos, then by all means, let us have a figurehead.

The reserve powers of the Crown have been reduced even more in Canada than in the UK, and there are several cases in just the last decade where the Lieutenant Governor or Governor General has had to make a decision. For example, if there's a motion of no confidence in the first sitting of the legislature, and the Prime Minister loses power immediately, the right answer is contextual. Sometimes another election really would be appropriate, in many cases the opposition can form a working government, if given a chance.

None of these problems are insurmountable, of course. And you could just keep an executive -- I personally prefer just replacing the Governor General in Canada with a president, preferably indirectly elected. Still, patching the constitution would be pretty involved, if you wish to fully excise the executive in its current form from the Westminster system.

So if after an election there are two different coalitions with different Prime-ministerial candidates who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections?

This happens in countries with and without a monarch - Spain re-ran their elections in 2016 and again in 2019 because no party could present themselves to the king as viable (a.k.a a majority coalition). Israel, without a monarch, has been re-running their elections for two years now because a weak coalition forms, governs for a minute, and then falls apart.

Parliament. A cabinet needs approval of a majority in parliament. At that stage of the process, the monarch has no influence, even now. I'm not sure who decides whether or not to hold new elections, but I'm pretty sure it's not the monarch.