General elections were held in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

on 17 December 1978. The Christian People's Party emerged as the largest party, with 57 of the 212 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 29 of the 106 seats in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. Voter turnout was 94.8%.Nohlen & Stöver, p291 Elections were also held for the nine provincial councils and for the Council of the German Cultural Community. The snap elections were called after Prime Minister

Leo Tindemans Leonard Clemence "Leo" Tindemans (; 16 April 1922 – 26 December 2014) was a Belgian politician. He served as the prime minister of Belgium serving from 25 April 1974 until he resigned as minister on 20 October 1978. He was a member of the Chri ...

resigned over the

Egmont pact The Egmont pact ( nl, Egmontpact; french: Pacte d'Egmont; german: Egmont-Pakt) of 1977 is an agreement on the reform of Belgium into a federal state and on the relations between the linguistic communities in the country. The pact was not carried o ...

, which would have transformed Belgium into a federal state.

Vlaams Blok ''Vlaams Blok'' ( en, Flemish Block, or VB) was the name of a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform.Erk, 2005, pp. 493-502. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence ...

participated for the first time, which was formed out of disagreement within the People's Union over concessions in the Egmont pact.

Results

Chamber of Deputies

Senate

References

{{Belgian elections 1978 elections in Belgium December 1978 events in Europe