Belgians return to the polls this Sunday, October 13, four months after the previous elections, but this time, it is at the local level. Which makes a big difference with the previous election.
Four months after the legislative elections, repeat! But this time, at the local level. An undefinable number of voters (due to the abolition of compulsory voting in Flanders) must go to the polls this Sunday to elect the municipal councils of the country’s 581 entities, which will soon only be 565, as well as the 10 councils provincial. Added to this are some original features specific to Antwerp (district councils) and municipalities with facilities (CPAS councils).
In Flanders, the big unknown is the participation rate, because the obligation to vote is repealed at local level for the very first time. Potential voters are no longer “summoned”, but “invited” to come to the voting booth.
Municipal elections in a few figures
There are just over 8 million Belgian voters (8,137,505) and 162,817 voters of foreign nationality (including 27,780 non-EU) who registered on time. This represents a little more than 15% of potential foreign voters who have decided to take the step to be able to vote.
13,356 municipal councilors are to be elected: 5,243 in French-speaking Wallonia, 703 in Brussels, 7,239 in Flanders and 171 in the German-speaking Community. Only in Flanders has this figure decreased (by 159 elected officials compared to 2018), thanks to municipal mergers. Everywhere else, it is pushed upwards by population growth. There are also 404 councilors to be elected at the provincial level, which concerns all of Belgium except Brussels (229 councilors in Wallonia, 175 in Flanders).
Specificity of the municipal vote: it is organized not by the federal State but by the three Regions (Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels), but also the German-speaking Community for the 9 municipalities of Ostbelgien.
In several places, the election will make it possible to set up the first municipal council of a completely new entity. Even if the mergers are not yet effective, they have been anticipated and the voters of the entities called to merge into one vote for the same lists and for one and the same municipal council.
In Wallonia, this is the case of Bastogne and Bertogne, in anticipation of their merger on December 2. In Flanders, this is the case in 28 municipalities, which will officially merge on January 1 to form only 13. There will then no longer be 581 municipalities but 565.
Vote for a person more than a party
If this year 2024 is so rich in elections, it is a pure coincidence: the local assemblies are elected for six years, the parliamentary assemblies renewed last June are for five. The proximity of the two elections is, however, not without impact on the strategy of the parties, and observers will hasten to analyze whether the big winners of June, including the MR and the Engagés on the French-speaking side, also reap valuable victories in the election. level closest to the citizen. At this level, the issues are often very specific to the entity: mobility, security, housing, etc. The candidates also seem more driven by their individual popularity than by their political colors. This is evidenced by the numerous “mayor’s lists” or local alliances under names which reveal nothing about the parties participating in them.
In Flanders, the Open Vld is playing this card in full, having underperformed four months ago. In Wallonia, the PS remained by far number 1 in 2018 at the local level, while declining, among others in large cities. Despite everything, he retained the mayorship in seven of the nine large cities in the south, the other two (Mouscron and Namur) being led by an elected official from the Engagés. What will the liberals manage to do, for example in Mons? And what about Ecolo, which no longer has the wind in its sails at all at the regional and federal level? The PTB also asserts that it resolutely wants to participate in power where it is “indispensable”, which is currently only in a single majority, in Flanders (Zelzate).
In Brussels, the 19 existing mayors are standing in the ballot, almost all at the top of the list. In 2018, the PS was the leading party in the capital, in terms of elected officials and mayors, but is attacked from all sides, on its left with the PTB and Team Fouad Ahidar, and frontally by the MR and Les Engagés, who intend ride on their successes from June.
municipal elections municipal elections 2024
