2007 Belgian federal election

2007 Belgian federal election

← 2003 10 June 2007 (2007-06-10) 2010 →
All 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives 76 seats needed for a majority 40 of 71 seats in the Senate
Turnout	91.08%
Party Leader % Seats +/– Chamber of Representatives N-VA Yves Leterme 18.51% 30 +8 MR Didier Reynders 12.52% 23 −1 VB Frank Vanhecke 11.99% 17 −1 Open Vld Guy Verhofstadt 11.83% 18 −7 PS Elio Di Rupo 10.86% 20 −5 spirit Johan Vande Lanotte 10.26% 14 −9 cdH Joëlle Milquet 6.06% 10 +2 Ecolo Jean-Michel Javaux Isabelle Durant 5.10% 8 +4 Lijst Dedecker Jean-Marie Dedecker 4.03% 5 New Groen Vera Dua 3.98% 4 +4 FN Daniel Féret 1.97% 1 0 Senate N-VA Yves Leterme 19.42% 9 +3 Open Vld Guy Verhofstadt 12.40% 5 −2 MR Didier Reynders 12.31% 6 +1 VB Frank Vanhecke 11.89% 5 0 PS Elio Di Rupo 10.24% 4 −2 spirit Johan Vande Lanotte 10.04% 4 −3 cdH Joëlle Milquet 5.90% 2 0 Ecolo Jean-Michel Javaux Isabelle Durant 5.82% 2 +1 Groen Vera Dua 3.64% 1 +1 Lijst Dedecker Jean-Marie Dedecker 3.38% 5 New FN Daniel Féret 2.27% 1 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Chamber of Representatives results by electoral district Senate direct election results by electoral district Federal Government before Federal Government after Verhofstadt II Government Verhofstadt III Government (interim)

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Federal elections were held in

.

Eligible voters were Belgian citizens 18 years and older. There was a legal electoral threshold of 5% for political parties to meet to receive representation, but in several election districts the real electoral threshold is higher than the legal, due to the small number of seats to be elected in the particular district. The 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected from 11 electoral districts. The 40 Senate members were elected from the Dutch (25) and Francophone (15) electoral colleges.

Of the Flemish parties, the alliance of

The Francophone situation did not mirror its Flemish counterpart. While Verhofstadt's Open Vld struggled, its Francophone sister party

.

The overall outcome of the elections was that the liberal fraction (MR, Open Vld) became the largest group in parliament with, followed by the Christian Democrats (CD&V, cdH) and N-VA with 40 seats. The electoral alliance between the Flemish CD&V and N-VA parties became the biggest single parliamentary grouping (25 seats for CD&V and 5 for N-VA).

Background

The previous

Prime Minister of Belgium

until 2007.

Parties

Only parties who fielded candidates for the Belgian Senate are listed.

Flemish parties (Dutch speaking)

These Flemish parties field candidates in the regions of Flanders and the partially bilingual electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

CD&V/N-VA

The

, current prime minister of the Flemish Region and Community.

Having become the largest political party in the Belgian Chamber after the 2007 election, the alliance will become the fulcrum of the coalition talks for a new government. Commentators suggest that coalition talks will be difficult, as most Francophone parties see the alliance as being overly Flemish-dominated.

VB

It was the first time that the

.

sp.a–Spirit

The

to step down. Vande Lanotte made it also clear that the alliance will not take part in a federal government whose sole concern is state reform.

Open VLD

(Liberaal Appèl) (right-liberal).

The VLD has seen some infighting in the last years, resulting in two prominent members leaving the party,

.

Groen!

LDD

think tank. The party surprised some who doubted it would clear the 5% electoral threshold by receiving 6.3% of the Flemish vote.

PVDA+

The

origin. Its lists also contain independent candidates. The PVDA almost doubled their votes, from 0.5% to 0.9%.

CAP

The Committee for Another Policy (Comité voor een Andere Politiek) is a bilingual left wing political movement, consisting of trade union militants, and political militants of communist, Trotskyist and socialist origin. It was formed in 2006 as a reaction to the more centrist course of the SP.a. Former SP.a-representative Jef Sleeckx is one of the co-founders. These elections were the first the movement participated in. They got 0.4% of the votes in Flanders.

Francophone parties (French speaking)

These

.

PS

The

, after PS aldermen were charged with corruption.

MR

The

as finance minister.

The MR clearly won the elections in the French-speaking Walloon region, and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, ousting the previously dominant Parti Socialiste. The MR campaigned on three major fronts: the need for an alternative to the PS, entangled in various scandals of corruption and accused of poor governance leading to unemployment and anachronistic political systems; the need for a new fiscal reform; lowering taxes and government grip on the economy; and finally friendliness and cooperation with its Flemish counterpart, Open VLD.

cdH

The

Centre Démocrate Humaniste

is a Christian democratic party. They made a small advance (0.4%) in these elections and finished with 15.8% of the votes.

Ecolo

Ecolo is a Green party. It made the largest gains of the 2007 election among Francophone parties and went from 7.5% to 12.8%.

FN

The

is a Franco-nationalist political movement known for its tough stances on immigration. They gained 5.6% of the vote, the same as in 2003.

CAP

The Committee for Another Policy (Comité pour une Autre Politique) was a bilingual left wing political movement, consisting of trade union militants, and political militants of communist, Trotskyist and socialist origin. It was formed in 2006 as a reaction to the more centrist course of the PS and the SP.a. Former FGTB-chairman Georges Debunne was one of the co-founders. These elections were the first the movement participated in. The party got 0.2% of the votes in Hainaut and Liège, the two provinces where its candidates stood.

Issues

Good governance

CD&V used the theme of good governance as a breaking point against sp.a and VLD. The party claimed that unlike in the Flemish Government, where CD&V leader Leterme heads a tripartite government, with CD&V, VLD and sp.a, the federal government lacked good governance. sp.a and VLD tried to counter this charge with similar examples in the Flemish Government of practices which CD&V accused them of.

Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde and constitutionality

With the federal elections looming, the problem of the electoral district of

which declared the provincial electoral districts compared to the two remaining arrondisemental ones in the former province of Brabant unconstitutional. According to the ruling of the Court of Arbitration the current situation would make federal elections impossible after 24 June 2007, so the new government will have to solve the situation. Several mayors in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde area have threatened and actually have refused to compile the lists of electors. The governor took over their task.

Professor and constitutional expert

declared that the elections would be unconstitutional. According to Van Orshoven there were two problems:

• As the previous election was held on Sunday 18 May 2003, the final date to hold elections (four years from the previous) would be Sunday, 13 May 2007.
• The Court of Arbitration gave the government the time to fix the B-H-V problem until the next elections. That hasn't happened, which means that the election results could be declared void.

Corruption in the Walloon Region

During the campaign new irregularities and corruption in PS-lead Charleroi emerged. The MR started using this as an example of why things in Wallonia under PS management were bad. The campaign became hostile and personal attacks between various MR, cdH and PS leaders dominated the campaign.

Armenian genocide

In the run-up to the election,

In 1998, the Belgian Senate had already passed a resolution acknowledging the Armenian genocide, including the support of SP (later sp.a) and CVP (later CD&V) senators.[10]^[11]

Opinion polls

The polls conducted by the Stemmenkampioen site of

, a Flemish party founded in January 2007, was measured) and in May 2007.

Flanders

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size	Margin of error	N-VA	VB	spirit	Open Vld	Groen!	LDD	Others / None	Lead
De Standaart/VRT	8 Jun 2007	–	–	29.9%	21.4%	19.4%	17.7%	7.7%	3.8%	0.3%	8.5%
ULB/Le Soir/RTBf	17–30 May 2007	3,070	± 2.2%	29.7%	21.6%	19.7%	17.3%	7.4%	–	–	8.1%
De Standaart/VRT	17 Apr–11 May 2007	4,206	–	29.9%	20.7%	20.4%	17.3%	8.4%	2.1%	1.1%	9.2%
ULB/Le Soir/RTBf	29 Apr 2007	870	± 2.2%	29.6%	21.9%	20.3%	16.6%	6.7%	2.8%	–	7.7%
De Standaart/VRT	16 Mar 2007	–	–	30.4%	20.8%	20.7%	16.9%	7.6%	3.2%	–	9.6%
Het Laatste Nieuws	Jan 2007	812		30%	20%	17%	15%	5%	–	–	10%
De Standaart/VRT	31 Oct–16 Nov 2006	1,076	–	32.7%	21.9%	19.7%	17.3%	7.6%	–	–	10.8%

Wallonia

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size	Margin of error	PS	MR	cdH	Ecolo	FN	Others / None	Lead
ULB/Le Soir/RTBf	17–30 May 2007	3,070	± 2.2%	31.4%	26.5%	19.2%	9.7%	8.1%	–	4.9%
ULB/Le Soir/RTBf	29 Apr 2007	3,390	± 2.2%	33.4%	24.5%	19.0%	9.6%	8.2%	–	8.9%

Brussels

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size	Margin of error	MR	PS	cdH	Ecolo	Others / None	Lead
ULB/Le Soir/RTBf	17–30 May 2007	3,070	± 2.2%	27.4%	25.0%	15.3%	10.5%	–	2.4%
ULB/Le Soir/RTBf	29 Apr 2007	880	± 2.2%	27.9%	25.9%	–	–	–	2.0%

Results

2003

(grey).

2003

(grey).

2003

(left). The bold line shows the majority coalition.

Chamber of Representatives

Belgian Union							8,607	0.13	+0.09	0	0
	National Force	6,660	0.10	New	0	New
	Vivant	5,742	0.09	–0.35	0	0
	Parti jeunes musulmans	4,373	0.07	New	0	New
	Parti Wallon	3,139	0.05	New	0	New
	Vrijheid, Intimiteit, Thuis, Arbeid en Liefde	1,780	0.03	+0.01	0	0
	Nieuwe Partij – Fervent Nationaal	1,605	0.02	New	0	New
	Vélorution	1,453	0.02	New	0	New
	Union pour un mouvement populaire – Belgique	1,408	0.02	New	0	New
	MP Éducation	1,362	0.02	New	0	New
	Trefle	920	0.01	New	0	New
	Front des Bruxellois	901	0.01	New	0	New
	Belgique Positif	880	0.01	New	0	New
	Unie	856	0.01	New	0	New
	Pluralis	757	0.01	New	0	New
	Droit et libertés des citoyens	464	0.01	New	0	New
	Groupe social des citoyens démocrates	170	0.00	New	0	New
Total		6,671,360	100.00	–	150	0
Valid votes		6,671,360	94.87
Invalid/blank votes		360,717	5.13
Total votes		7,032,077	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,720,796	91.08
Source: IBZ

The newly constituted Chamber met for the first time on Thursday 28 June 2007, when the Representatives took the oath of office.

Senate

National Front							150,461	2.27	+0.02	1	0
	Workers' Party of Belgium	54,807	0.83	+0.01	0	0
	Rassemblement Wallonie France	32,094	0.48	+0.06	0	0
	Committee for Another Policy	21,215	0.32	New	0	New
	Communist Party of Belgium	19,632	0.30	New	0	New
	National Force	14,866	0.22	New	0	New
	Chrétiens démocrates fédéraux	13,319	0.20	–0.39	0	0
	NEE	12,115	0.18	New	0	New
	Stijn	11,097	0.17	New	0	New
Total		6,628,127	100.00	–	40	0
Valid votes		6,628,127	94.25
Invalid/blank votes		404,257	5.75
Total votes		7,032,384	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,720,796	91.08
Source: IBZ

21

Coopted Senators were also appointed. The definite distribution is not known. On Thursday 28 June 2007, the directly-elected Senators took the oath of office. One week later, on 5 July 2007, the Community Senators took the oath, and two weeks later, on 12 July 2007, the Coopted Senators took the oath. On that day, the Senate was fully constituted.^[12][13]

Government formation

Main article:

2007 Belgian government formation

Due to differences in view with regards to constitutional reform between the Flemish and Francophone parties, the negotiations to form a new government proceeded with much difficulty.

On 13 June 2007, King

The King then appointed

See also

• 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Federal elections in Belgium, 2007.

• Elections 07 VRT election site
• Tractothèque - Electoral posters and leaflets