Hard times for governing parties: the 2019 federal elections in Belgium

Abstract

On 26 May 2019, European, federal and regional elections in Belgium were held. The main electoral results showed the decline of ruling parties (N-VA, MR, Open VLD, CD&V) and the rise of radical parties on the right (Vlaams Belang) and left (PVDA-PTB). These results have opened a period of deep government instability with very long negotiations to form coalitions at the regional level, and even more so at the federal level. It eventually took the COVID-19 crisis outbreak for a new government to be formed. However, the new minority government obtained external support from six parties for a period of six months only. Over the last decade, forming a coalition has proven itself to be more and more difficult in Belgium. The rise of extreme parties and the decline of mainstream parties are making it even harder. If the trend holds, one might have to question the future capacity of Belgium to form sustainable coalitions.

Keywords:

• Belgium
• elections
• radical right
• radical left
• coalition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For other recent reports in the Elections in Context series see Aylott and Bolin 2019; Durovic 2019; Faas and Klingelhöfer 2019; and Garzia 2019.

2 Défi and N-VA are both historically regionalist parties but they have diverged significantly over the last decades. N-VA is calling for the independence of Flanders in the long run, while Défi stands mostly for the defence of the rights of French speakers in Brussels, but also in the Flemish areas around Brussels and is trying to settle in Wallonia. The two parties also diverge greatly on the other cleavages and salient issues. N-VA is a right-wing conservative party with quite a hard stance on immigration. Défi is a centre-right liberal party with a relatively open stance on immigration.

3 For the sake of completeness, there are also separate institutions for the language communities: the government of the French-speaking community was led by a coalition between PS and CDH while the one of the Dutch-speaking community was a coalition of ProDG (regionalists), PFF (liberals) and SP (social-democrats).

4 PTB-PVDA is the last nation-wide party in Belgium. Its Flemish (PVDA) and Francophone (PTB) wings form a single parliamentary party group and have a single party headquarters and party leader (Peter Mertens).

5 Represent is composed of political scientists from the University of Antwerp (Stefaan Walgrave), Université libre de Bruxelles (Emilie van Haute and Jean-Benoit Pilet), KU Leuven (Sofie Marien), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Karen Celis and Kris Deschouwer), and UC Louvain (Benoît Rihoux, Virginie van Ingelgom, and Pierre Baudewyns).

6 The Cevipol study has been coordinated by Pascal Delwit. http://cevipol.ulb.ac.be/fr/premieres-pieces-du-puzzle-electoral-bruxelles-le-26-mai-2019-analyses-liminaires-des-donnees-issues

7 In the electoral district of Brussels, Groen and SP.a were presenting a few candidates on the list of Ecolo and PS, and PVDA ran jointly with PTB. N-VA, CD&V, Vlaams Belang and OpenVLD ran independently and together attracted 8.36 per cent of all valid votes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jean-Benoit Pilet

Jean-Benoit Pilet is Professor of Political Science at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He studies Belgian politics, elections, electoral systems, democratic innovations and party politics. He has published Faces on the Ballot. The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe (with Alan Renwick, OUP, 2016) and The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-national Perspective (edited, with William Cross, OUP, 2016). [[email protected]]