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Federal 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 ...
on 26 May 2019, alongside the country's European and regional elections. All 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected from eleven multi-member constituencies. The far-right
Vlaams Belang , ideology = , predecessor = Vlaams Blok , position = , europarl = Identity and Democracy , european = Identity and Democracy Party , youth_wing = Vlaams Belang Jongeren , colours = ...
(VB) saw a resurgence in
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
, and with the
New Flemish Alliance The New Flemish Alliance ( nl, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, N-VA) is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU). ...
(NVA), parties subscribing to
Flemish separatism The Flemish Movement ( nl, Vlaamse Beweging) is an umbrella term which encompasses various political groups in the Belgian region of Flanders and, less commonly, in French Flanders. Ideologically, it encompasses groups which have sought to prom ...
and
nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
obtained nearly 50% of the vote in
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
. The Swedish coalition of N-VA, CD&V, MR and Open VLD lost more than a quarter of its seats, the worst government punishment in 20 years. In addition, gains for the far-left Workers' Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB), and the green
Ecolo Ecolo, officially Écologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales'', (English: Confederate Ecologists for the Organisation of Original Struggles)'' is a French-speaking political party in Belgium based on green politics. The ...
party in
Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—al ...
occurred. Overall, traditional parties suffered losses in both regions.


Background

Following the
2014 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2014. * 2014 United Nations Security Council election 16 October 2014 Africa * 2014 Algerian presidential election 17 April 2014 * 2014 Botswana general election 24 October 2014 * 2014 Comorian presi ...
, a centre-right government consisting of
N-VA The New Flemish Alliance ( nl, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, N-VA) is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU). ...
,
CD&V Christian Democratic and Flemish (, , CD&V) is a Flemish Christian-democratic political party in Belgium. The party has historical ties to both trade unionism (ACV) and trade associations ( UNIZO) and the Farmer's League. Until 2001, the party w ...
,
Open Vld french: Libéraux et démocrates flamands ouverts , abbreviation = Open Vld , logo = , leader1_title = President , leader1_name = Egbert Lachaert , foundation = 1992 (VLD)2007 (Open Vld) , predecessor = P ...
and MR was formed, led by Prime Minister
Charles Michel Charles Michel (; born 21 December 1975) is a Belgian politician serving as the president of the European Council since 2019. He previously served as the prime minister of Belgium between 2014 and 2019. Michel became the minister of Developm ...
(MR). The government coalition is unique in several aspects: the N-VA participates for the first time, the MR is the only French-speaking party, and the French-speaking
Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of ...
is not part of the government for the first time in 25 years. Local elections were held on 14 October 2018. As such, the 2019 simultaneous regional, federal and European elections were held only several months after the local elections. In early December 2018, a political crisis emerged regarding the
Global Compact for Migration The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) is an intergovernmentally negotiated agreement, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations, that describes itself as covering "all dimensions of international migration in a ...
, which was supposed to be signed but sparked instead opposition from government party
N-VA The New Flemish Alliance ( nl, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, N-VA) is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU). ...
. As the three other government parties as well as a large majority in parliament supported the compact, N-VA left the government and the three other parties continued briefly as a minority cabinet ( Michel II) with an unclear status. Prime Minister Michel ultimately offered his resignation to the King on 18 December 2018, who accepted it three days later. As regular elections were scheduled for May 2019 anyway, snap elections were only favoured by N-VA and Vlaams Belang and did not happen, and the minority cabinet continued as a
caretaker government A caretaker government is a temporary ''ad hoc'' government that performs some governmental duties and functions in a country until a regular government is elected or formed. Depending on specific practice, it usually consists of either randomly se ...
until the elections.


Electoral system

The 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected in 11 multi-member constituencies, being the ten
provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
and Brussels, with between 4 and 24 seats. Seats are allocated using the
D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highes ...
, with an
electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
of 5% per constituency. Representatives elected from the five
Flemish Region The Flemish Region ( nl, Vlaams Gewest, ),; german: Flämische Region usually simply referred to as Flanders ( nl, link=no, Vlaanderen ) ; german: link=no, Flandern is one of the three regions of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and ...
provinces,
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
(24),
East Flanders , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of Oost-Vlaanderen.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van O ...
(20),
Flemish Brabant Flemish Brabant ( nl, Vlaams-Brabant ; french: Brabant flamand ) is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Hain ...
(15), Limburg (12) and
West Flanders West Flanders ( nl, West-Vlaanderen ; vls, West Vloandern; french: (Province de) Flandre-Occidentale ; german: Westflandern ) is the westernmost province of the Flemish Region, in Belgium. It is the only coastal Belgian province, facing the No ...
(16), automatically belonged to the Dutch-speaking language group in parliament, whereas those elected from the five provinces of
Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—al ...
, Hainaut (18),
Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far fro ...
(15),
Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
(4),
Namur Namur (; ; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Na ...
(6) and
Walloon Brabant Walloon Brabant (french: Brabant wallon ; nl, Waals-Brabant ; wa, Roman Payis) is a province located in Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the province of Flemish Brabant (Flemish Region) and ...
(5), formed the French-speaking language group. The 15 members elected in
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
could choose to join either group. Apportionment of seats is done every ten years in accordance with population data, last by royal order of 31 January 2013. The 60-member
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 ...
is composed of 50 representatives from the regional and community parliaments, plus 10 co-opted senators proportionally divided among parties based on the result of the federal election. All Belgian citizens aged 18 or over were obligated to participate in the election. Non-Belgian citizens residing in Belgium (regardless of EU citizenship) couldn't vote, whereas Belgian citizens living abroad could register to vote.


Date

The 2011–14 state reform changed several aspects regarding federal elections. Starting with the May 2014 election, which coincided with European Parliament and regional elections, the federal parliament is elected for a five-year term rather than a four-year term. The federal elections would from then on always coincide with the European Parliament elections; snap federal elections would trigger a parliamentary term lasting until the next European Parliament elections. However, as of 2017, a law needed for this to take effect has not been enacted. Given the five-year term for all three elections, they all coincided in 2019 regardless, as no snap federal elections were called. Additionally, de facto practice is to formally dissolve parliament and trigger new elections by
Declaration of Revision of the Constitution A Declaration of Revision of the Constitution ( nl, Verklaring tot herziening van de Grondwet, french: Déclaration de révision de la Constitution) in Belgium is a declaration that must be passed in order to amend the Belgian Constitution. In acco ...
shortly before regular expiry of the parliamentary term.


Parties and leaders


Lead candidates

The following candidates are the first on the respective party list ('' lijsttrekker'' / ''tête de liste'') per constituency.


Dutch-speaking constituencies


French-speaking constituencies


Campaign

Despite leaving the government coalition in late 2018, it was the explicit ambition of N-VA to continue governing after the May 2019 election. In January 2019, the party put forward ex-minister
Jan Jambon Jan Jambon (born 26 April 1960 in Genk) is a Belgian politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) who has been serving as Minister-President of Flanders since 2019. He replaced Kris Peeters as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representative ...
as candidate for Prime Minister should the party enter a coalition. A continuation of the "Swedish coalition" (N-VA, MR, CD&V and Open Vld), potentially expanded with cdH, was a likely scenario. Outgoing Prime Minister
Charles Michel Charles Michel (; born 21 December 1975) is a Belgian politician serving as the president of the European Council since 2019. He previously served as the prime minister of Belgium between 2014 and 2019. Michel became the minister of Developm ...
(MR) was candidate to continue in his position. Meanwhile, the French-speaking Socialist Party (PS) had the ambition to re-enter government as well, or "re-conquer" as formulated by leader
Elio Di Rupo Elio Di Rupo (; born 18 July 1951) is a Belgian politician who has served as the minister-president of Wallonia since 2019. He is affiliated with the Socialist Party. Di Rupo previously served as the prime minister of Belgium from 6 December 201 ...
, after being in the opposition at federal level and being ousted from the Walloon government. Additionally, there was speculation that the Flemish liberal and green parties (Open Vld and Groen) would favour cooperating, given Groen's recent rise and their local governing coalitions in cities like Mechelen, Gent and Oostende. However, their French-speaking counterparts, MR and Ecolo, are politically and ideologically further apart.


Retiring incumbents

The following incumbent members of the Chamber of Representatives announced their retirement from (national) politics: * Hans Bonte (sp.a, Flemish Brabant) * Peter Dedecker (N-VA, East Flanders) * Alain Mathot (PS, Liège) * Laurette Onkelinx (PS, Brussels) * Goedele Uyttersprot (N-VA, East Flanders) * Dirk Van der Maelen (sp.a, East Flanders) *
Eric Van Rompuy Eric Karel Paul Van Rompuy (born 23 November 1949 in Uccle) is a Flemish politician. Biography He is the son of the later Prof. em. dr. Vic Van Rompuy and brother of Herman Van Rompuy and Christine Van Rompuy.Peter Vanvelthoven (sp.a, Limburg) * Jan Vercammen (N-VA, West Flanders)


Opinion polls


Results


Aftermath

The election once again exposed the deep linguistic, ethnic and regional divisions of Belgium, with the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders strongly voting for right-wing Flemish nationalist and separatist parties, and the French-speaking region of Wallonia strongly voting left. In response to
Vlaams Belang , ideology = , predecessor = Vlaams Blok , position = , europarl = Identity and Democracy , european = Identity and Democracy Party , youth_wing = Vlaams Belang Jongeren , colours = ...
's surge in support there has been some speculation that the
N-VA The New Flemish Alliance ( nl, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, N-VA) is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU). ...
leader Bart De Wever may break the '' Cordon sanitaire'' imposed on the party, resulting in the two Flemish nationalist parties joining forces, by refusing to rule out talks with the VB, as their strong results could make forming a coalition more difficult. The People's Party, a small right-wing French-speaking party, dissolved on 18 June through an internal party vote in response to losing their only seat in the elections. Former party leader Mischaël Modrikamen blamed the "systematic exclusion of the People's Party from the political and media debate." In the days following the election, King Philippe held consultations with all main party leaders, including
Vlaams Belang , ideology = , predecessor = Vlaams Blok , position = , europarl = Identity and Democracy , european = Identity and Democracy Party , youth_wing = Vlaams Belang Jongeren , colours = ...
party leader
Tom Van Grieken Tom Jozef Irène Van Grieken (born 7 October 1986) is a Belgian politician and author who has served as leader of Vlaams Belang since October 2014. Early life Van Grieken was born in Antwerp and later moved to Mortsel where he served as a muni ...
. According to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', it was the first time a Belgian monarch met a representative from a far-right party since 1936, when
King Leopold III Leopold III (3 November 1901 – 25 September 1983) was King of the Belgians from 23 February 1934 until his abdication on 16 July 1951. At the outbreak of World War II, Leopold tried to maintain Belgian neutrality, but after the German invasi ...
met the representatives of the Rexist Party. On 30 May, King Philippe appointed
Johan Vande Lanotte Johan Cyrille Corneel Vande Lanotte (born 6 July 1955) is a Belgian politician. He is a member of the SP.A, and became its party president on 15 October 2005. He handed down his leadership positions after the SP.A lost in the 2007 general elec ...
(sp.a) and Didier Reynders (MR), two experienced politicians with a long period of service, as informateurs. They reported on their progress by 6 June as expected, after which they were given some more time, with a new deadline of 17 June. After this deadline passed, another extension was granted until 1 July, and again until 29 July and one more extension until 9 September. On 24 August the Belgian government decided to appoint Didier Reynders as
European Commissioner A European Commissioner is a member of the 27-member European Commission. Each member within the Commission holds a specific portfolio. The commission is led by the President of the European Commission. In simple terms they are the equivalent ...
. On 4 October 2019, King Philippe announced the end of the first phase of federal government formation talks, with the informateurs advising that a government of the N-VA, the Socialist Party and the Greens was the best option to pursue. The informateurs will report back to the king of the 4 November, following which a formateur will be appointed to introduce the third stage of government formation. On 4 November, the two new informateurs, Rudy Demotte and Geert Bourgeois, offered their resignations to the King, as they could not break the political deadlock. On 17 March 2020, the successor of
Michel II Government The Michel II Government was the Federal Government of Belgium, led by Prime Minister Charles Michel from 18 December 2018 until 27 October 2019 when it was succeeded by the Wilmès I Government. It was a centre minority coalition cabinet of ...
, the Wilmès Government, had its mandate extended. Most parliamentary parties provided them external support in order to manage the coronavirus pandemic. Informal talks on forming a new government began in June 2020. Wilmès II government was eventually replaced by the permanent seven-party coalition — De Croo Government in October, with Wilmès becoming one of the deputy prime ministers.


See also

2019 Belgian regional elections The 2019 Belgian regional elections took place on Sunday 26 May, the same day as the 2019 European Parliament election as well as the Belgian federal election. In the regional elections, new representatives were chosen for the Flemish Parliament, ...


References


External links


Elections 2019
Federal Public Service Interior The FPS Interior ( nl, FOD Binnenlandse Zaken, french: SPF Intérieur, german: FÖD Inneres), formerly the Ministry of the Interior, is a Federal Public Service of Belgium. It was created by Royal Order on January 14, 2002, as part of the plans ...
{{Belgian elections Federal Federal Federal elections in Belgium
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 ...