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 parties’ strategy, and observers will be quick to analyze whether the big winners in June also reap valuable victories at the level closest to the citizen. At this level, the issues are often very specific to the entity: mobility, security, housing, in particular.
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 fully playing this card, which underperformed four months ago. The CD&V is trying to maintain its numerous mayorates in the municipalities in the north of the country.
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? The PTB affirms that it resolutely wants to participate in power where it makes itself “indispensable”, which is currently only in a single majority, in Zelzate in Flanders.
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 build on their success of June 9.
