Map of the 2019 Belgian regional elections

The 2019 Belgian regional elections took place on Sunday 26 May, the same day as the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) we ...

as well as the Belgian federal election. In the regional elections, new representatives were chosen for the

Flemish Parliament The Flemish Parliament (Dutch language, Dutch: , formerly called Flemish Council or ''Vlaamse Raad'') constitutes the legislature, legislative power in Flanders for matters which fall within the competence of Flanders, both as a geographic reg ...

, Walloon Parliament,

Brussels Parliament The Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (; ) is the governing body of the Brussels-Capital Region, one of the three federated regions of Belgium. It is als ...

and the Parliament of the German-speaking Community. The Parliament of the French Community was composed of all elected members of the Walloon Parliament (except German-speaking members) and 19 of the French-speaking members of the Brussels Parliament. The elections followed the 2014 elections and were shortly after the 2018 local elections, which indicated voters' tendencies after an unusually long period of time without any elections in Belgium.

Electoral system

The regional parliaments have limited power over their own election; federal law largely regulates this and the federal government organises the elections, which occur per Article 117 of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

on the same day as the

European Parliament elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by Universal suffrage, universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after Electio ...

. As such, all regional parliaments were elected using proportional representation under the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

. Only Belgian citizens in Belgium had the right to vote, and voting was mandatory for them. Belgians living abroad were allowed to vote in European and federal elections, but not in regional elections. The following timetable is fixed for the simultaneous European, federal and regional elections:

Flemish Parliament

124 members of the

were elected. The five Flemish provinces (West Flanders, East Flanders, Antwerp, Flemish Brabant and Limburg) each were a constituency, plus the Brussels-Capital Region where those voting for a Dutch-language party could also vote in the Flemish election. The incumbent

Bourgeois Government The Bourgeois Government (''Regering-Bourgeois'') was the Flemish Government formed following the Belgian regional elections, 2014, 2014 Flemish Parliament election. The cabinet consisted of a centre-right coalition of the nationalist New Flemish ...

was made up of a coalition of Flemish nationalists (N-VA), Christian democrats (CD&V) and liberals (Open Vld). The incumbent Minister-President was

Geert Bourgeois Geert Albert Bourgeois (; born 6 July 1951) is a Belgium, Belgian politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which he founded in 2001, who is currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. He previously served as the Mi ...

(N-VA). The three-party centre-right government coalition had a comfortable majority. In the October 2018 local elections, no major shifts occurred, although N-VA and sp.a lost some support while Vlaams Belang and Groen generally gained votes. CD&V and Open Vld remained stable. Incumbent Minister-President Bourgois (N-VA) contended in the simultaneous European Parliament elections; N-VA president Bart De Wever (N-VA) was their party's candidate to succeed him as head of the Flemish Government. Minister Hilde Crevits was CD&V's candidate for Minister-President. Open Vld explicitly did not put forward a candidate.

Main candidates

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

Retiring incumbents

* Minister Jo Vandeurzen (CD&V, Limburg) * Rob Beenders (sp.a, Limburg) * Yamila Idrissi (sp.a, Brussels) *Grete Remen (N-VA, Limburg) * Johan Verstreken (CD&V, West Flanders)

Results

Distribution by province

Walloon Parliament

75 members of the Walloon Parliament were elected. The members were elected in multi-member

arrondissement An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, and certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands. Europe France The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissem ...

-based constituencies; the Walloon Parliament is the only parliament in Belgium still using this geographical level for constituencies. A January 2018 law however reduced the constituencies from 13 to 11, following a successful challenge by

Ecolo Ecolo (), officially Écologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales (, ) is a French-speaking political party in Belgium based on green politics. The party is active in Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region. Ecolo's F ...

to the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

that constituencies with too few seats are unrepresentative. Both Luxembourg constituencies were merged and the Hainaut constituencies were redrawn. After the 2014 elections, a coalition government of the

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 th ...

(PS) and Christian democrats (cdH) was formed. In 2017 however, following major scandals involving mainly PS, cdH opted to continue governing with MR as the main party instead of PS.

Willy Borsus Willy Borsus (born 4 April 1962) is a Belgian politician. He is a member of the Reformist Movement (MR). He was the 14th Minister-President of Wallonia from the 28th of July 2017 to the 13th of September 2019. Political career Political ma ...

(MR) succeeded Paul Magnette (PS) as

Minister-President of Wallonia The minister-president of Wallonia () is the head of the Government of Wallonia, the executive power of Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. The official residence, known as the Élysette, is in Namur, along the Meuse River. The ministe ...

in July 2017. This was the first time a government majority changed during a legislative term of a Belgian regional government.

Results

Distribution by province

Brussels Parliament

All 89 members of the

Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region The Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (; ) is the governing body of the Brussels-Capital Region, one of the three federated Communities and regions of Be ...

were elected. They were elected

at-large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather tha ...

, but there were separate Dutch-language party lists (electing 17 members) and French-language party lists (electing 72 members). Those voting for a Dutch-language party could also cast a vote for the Flemish Parliament election.

Results

Distribution by district

German-speaking Community Parliament

All 25 members of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community were elected in one constituency (

). In the 2014–2019 period, the government was made up of regionalist ProDG, the socialist party and the liberal PFF, headed by Minister-President

Oliver Paasch Oliver Paasch (; Malmedy, 21 October 1971) is a Belgian politician of the German-speaking ProDG (Belgium), Pro Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft party and the incumbent Minister-president of the German-speaking Community of Belgium. Between 2004 a ...

(ProDG).

2019 German-speaking community Parliament election

Results

Distribution by district

Notes

References

External links

Elections 2019
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Federal Public Service Interior The FPS Interior (, , ), formerly the Ministry of the Interior, is a Federal Public Service of Belgium. It was created by Royal Order on 14 January 2002, as part of the plans of the Verhofstadt I Government to modernise the federal administratio ...

{{Belgian elections Regional elections in Belgium

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...