the general election on 10 June 2007, leading his party's list of candidates. On election day, he received about 800,000 preferential votes, the second largest number of votes ever gained in the history of Belgian elections. This was one of the greatest monster tallies in recent Belgian history (the previous comparable score was obtained by Leo Tindemans). Based on this personal tally, on the successful tally of his party, and on the general election tallies which saw progress for most parties making the strongest demands for greater Flemish autonomy, such as CD&V, New-Flemish Alliance and the new Lijst Dedecker (LDD), status quo for the left-wing Greens, and regression for the far right Vlaams Belang and parties making only modest demands for greater Flemish autonomy, such as OpenVLD and Socialist Party - Different. Leterme as formateur convened the negotiations to form a coalition government, negotiations which would turn out to be protracted and initially lead to a stalemate. 2007–2008 political stalemate Yves Leterme was the favourite to become the next Prime Minister of Belgium following the 2007 General Election. From 16 July to 23 August 2007, Leterme led the formal coalition talks into forming a new government. But the negotiations failed over constitutional reform and on 23 August he resigned as formateur. On 29 September, Herman Van Rompuy, "explorer" in the coalition seeking process, presented his final report to the King. Later that day, King Albert II again appointed Leterme as formateur. On 7 November, his party took the initiative and got the Flemish representatives to vote on the most crucial aspect of the negotiations, the splitting of the electoral region of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, a measure strongly opposed by the Francophone community. Leterme again offered his resignation to the King on 1 December, after coalition talks failed to reach an agreement on several issues. An interim government under Guy Verhofstadt was sworn in on 21 December 2007. In it, Leterme became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Budget, Institutional Reform, and Transport. He was anticipated to become Prime Minister in a new government in March 2008. Belgium's political uncertainty further deepened when Yves Leterme was hospitalised on 14 February 2008. Rumours that he was suffering from hepatitis were formally denied by a spokesman, and it was later disclosed that he had suffered internal bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract. His duties as Minister for Budget and Institutional Reform were temporarily taken over