# 2024 Belgian federal election

Federal elections were held in Belgium on 9 June 2024. The Chamber of Representatives received 150 members with five-year terms. European and regional elections took place on the same day.

## Background

After a lengthy government formation spanning 494 days, the 2019 Belgian federal election eventually resulted in the formation of a government led by prime minister Alexander De Croo, consisting of a so-called Vivaldi coalition. The government replaced a government led by Sophie Wilmès, which was a caretaker minority government with emergency plenary powers given by the opposition to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak in Belgium.

## Electoral system

The 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives are elected in 11 multi-member constituencies, being the ten provinces and Brussels, with between 4 and 24 seats. Seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method, with an electoral threshold of 5% per constituency.
The 87 representatives elected from the five Flemish Region provinces, Antwerp (24), East Flanders (20), Flemish Brabant (15), Limburg (12) and West Flanders (16), automatically belonged to the Dutch-speaking language group in parliament, whereas those 47 elected from the five provinces of Wallonia, Hainaut (17), Liège (14), Luxembourg (4), Namur (7) and Walloon Brabant (5), formed the French-speaking language group. The 16 members elected in Brussels can choose to join either group. Apportionment of seats is done every ten years in accordance with population data, last by royal order in 2022, when Brussels and Namur each gained a seat while Hainaut and Liège lost a seat.
The 60-member Senate is composed of 50 representatives from the regional and community parliaments, plus 10 co-opted senators proportionally divided among parties based on the result of the federal election.
All Belgian citizens aged 18 or over are obligated to participate in the election. Non-Belgian citizens residing in Belgium (regardless of EU citizenship) cannot vote, whereas Belgian citizens living abroad can register to vote.
Voting is done electronically in all 19 Brussels and nine German-speaking municipalities, as well as in 159 Flemish municipalities. Voting is done by paper ballot in 141 Flemish municipalities as well as in all 253 (non-German-speaking) Walloon municipalities.

### Timetable

| 9 February | Start of the "waiting period" (sperperiode) running until the day of the election, during which political propaganda and expenses are strictly regulated |
| 1 April | The electoral roll is fixed by municipal authorities and available for scrutiny |
| 13 April | Deadline for submitting candidate lists |
| TBD | The Parliament is formally dissolved |
| 25 May | Final day for the official announcement of the election and the convocation letter to voters |
| 5 June | Polling day for Belgians residing abroad in the embassies and consular posts |
| 9 June | Polling day (from 8am until 2pm, or until 4pm where voting is done electronically) |
| 10 July | Constitutive session of the newly elected Chamber of Representatives |

## Parties
### Sitting

The following parties running had seats in the Chamber of Representatives prior to the elections.
| Party | Ideology | Political position | Leader | 2019 result | Status |
| N-VA | Conservatism Flemish nationalism | Centre-right to right-wing | Bart De Wever | 25 / 150 | Opposition |
| Vlaams Belang | Right-wing populism Flemish nationalism | Right-wing to far-right | Tom Van Grieken | 18 / 150 | Opposition |
| PS | Social democracy | Centre-left | Paul Magnette | 20 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Vooruit | Social democracy | Centre-left | Melissa Depraetere | 9 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Reformist Movement | Liberalism | Centre-right | Georges-Louis Bouchez | 14 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Open Vld | Liberalism | Centre-right | Tom Ongena | 12 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Ecolo | Green politics | Centre-left | Rajae Maouane and Jean-Marc Nollet [fr] | 13 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Groen | Green politics | Centre-left | Nadia Naji and Jeremie Vaneeckhout | 8 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Christian Democratic and Flemish | Christian democracy | Centre to centre-right | Sammy Mahdi | 12 / 150 | Governing coalition |
| Workers' Party of Belgium | Socialism Marxism | Left-wing to far-left | Raoul Hedebouw | 12 / 150 | Opposition |
| Les Engagés | Social liberalism | Centre | Maxime Prévot | 5 / 150 | Opposition |
| DéFI | Regionalism social liberalism | Centre to centre-right | François De Smet [fr] | 2 / 150 | Opposition |

#### Outside

| Party | Ideology | Political position | Constituency |
| Blanco Party | Single-issue | Centrism | Flemish and Walloon |
| Belgische Unie – Union Belge | Royalism Unitarism | Centrism | Flemish and Walloon |
| L'Unie | Unitarism | Centrism | Flemish and Walloon |
| Alternatief 2024 | Participatory democracy | Centrism | Only in Flemish Brabant |
| BoerBurgerBelangen | Agrarianism | Centre-right | Flemish |
| DierAnimal | Animal welfare Environmentalism | Centre-left | Antwerp |
| Gezond Verstand | Liberalism Anti-Flemish independence | Centre-right | East Flanders |
| Volt | Social liberalism European federalism | Centre-left | All |
| VoorU | Liberalism Libertarianism | Right | Flemish |
| Collectif Citoyen | Participatory democracy | Centre | Walloon |
| Chez Nous | Anti-immigration National conservatism | Far-right | Walloon |
| Team Fouad Ahidar | Minority interests | Centre | Brussels |
| Agora | Participatory democracy | Centre | Walloon |
| Lutte Ouvrière | Trotskyism | Far-left | Walloon |

### Lead candidates

The following candidates are the first on the respective party list (lijsttrekker / tête de liste) per constituency.

#### Dutch-speaking constituencies

| Party | Antwerp | East Flanders | Flemish Brabant | Limburg | West Flanders | Brussels |
| CD&V | Annelies Verlinden | Vincent Van Peteghem | Sammy Mahdi | Nawal Farih | Nathalie Muylle | Together with Les Engagés |
| Groen | Meyrem Almaci | Petra De Sutter | Dieter Van Besien [nl] | Dirk Opsteyn | Matti Vandemaele [nl] | Together with Ecolo |
| N-VA | Bart De Wever | Anneleen Van Bossuyt | Theo Francken | Steven Vandeput | Jean-Marie Dedecker | Toby De Backer |
| Open Vld | Paul Van Tigchelt | Alexander De Croo | Irina De Knop | Steven Coenegrachts | Vincent Van Quickenborne | Together with MR |
| PVDA | Peter Mertens | Robin Tonniau | Kemal Bilmez | Kim De Witte | Natalie Eggermont | Together with PTB |
| Vlaams Belang | Lode Vereeck | Barbara Pas | Britt Huybrechts | Annick Ponthier | Wouter Vermeersch | Jan Verleysen |
| Vooruit | Jinnih Beels | Joris Vandenbroucke | Frank Vandenbroucke | Funda Oru | Melissa Depraetere | Together with PS |
| Volt | Jasper Coosemans | | | | | Emeric Massaut |
| VoorU | Frank Wouters | Michael Verstraeten | Els Ampe [nl] | Dirk Vijnck [nl] | Ivan Sabbe [nl] | Rachid El Hajui |
| l'Unie | | | Alexandra Bernaert | | | Charles de Groot |

#### French-speaking constituencies

Hainaut will feature three party chairmen (Bouchez for MR, Magnette for PS and Nollet for Ecolo) as well as popular ex-MR ex-minister Crucke for Les Engagés. In Namur, three federal deputy prime ministers will run against each other (Dermagne for PS, Gilkinet for Ecolo and Clarinval for MR). The right-wing Flemish nationalist N-VA party is also fielding candidates in Wallonia for the first time.
| Party | Hainaut | Liège | Luxembourg | Namur | Walloon Brabant | Brussels |
| DéFI | Mikhaël Jacquemain | Freddy Debarsy | Didier Serteyn | Julien Lemoine | Pierre Pinte | François De Smet [fr] |
| Ecolo | Jean-Marc Nollet [fr] | Sarah Schlitz | Olivier Vajda [fr] | Georges Gilkinet | Simon Moutquin [fr] | Zakia Khattabi |
| Les Engagés | Jean-Luc Crucke | Vanessa Matz | Benoît Lutgen | Maxime Prévot | Yves Coppieters | Elisabeth Degryse |
| MR | Georges-Louis Bouchez | Pierre-Yves Jeholet | Benoît Piedboeuf | David Clarinval | Florence Reuter | Sophie Wilmès |
| PS | Paul Magnette | Frédéric Daerden | Philippe Courard | Pierre-Yves Dermagne | Dimitri Legasse | Caroline Désir |
| PTB | Sofie Merckx | Raoul Hedebouw | | Farah Jacquet | Amaury Laridon | Nabil Boukili |
| N-VA | Michel De Wolf [fr] | Evelien Barbieux | Anne-Laure Mouligneaux | Laurence Genot | Drieu Godefridi [nl] | Toby De Backer |
| Chez Nous | Jérôme Munier | Noa Pozzi | Nicolas Dielman | Eric Doucet | Michaël Lefèvere | |
| l'Unie | | | | | Andrew Scrivener | Charles de Groot |

## Retiring incumbents

The following members of the federal parliament are not standing for election in June 2024.
* Patrick Dewael (Open Vld)
* Valerie Van Peel (N-VA)
* Maggie De Block (Open Vld)
* Barbara Creemers [nl] (Groen)
* Wouter De Vriendt (Groen)
* Kristof Calvo (Groen), though he later announced he will support the Ecolo list in Hainaut, without aiming to be elected
* Steven Creyelman (Vlaams Belang)
* Meryame Kitir (Vooruit)
* Jessika Soors [nl] (Groen)

## Opinion polls

In the run up to the 2024 Belgian federal election, various organisations carried out opinion polling to gauge voting intentions in Belgium. The date range for these polls were from a few months after the 2019 Belgian federal election, held on 25 May 2019, to shortly before the 2024 Belgian federal election. The results of nationwide polls were usually numerically split into the three Belgian regions: Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. The federal election was part of a group of elections which also included the regional elections and the European elections. Some polls might have undefined voting intentions without differentiating between the elections.

### Brussels
## Results

The results saw the New Flemish Alliance remain the largest party in parliament, while the incumbent coalition government led by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and his Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats held on to its majority by only one seat, despite the latter party falling to ninth place in the election tally. The Reformist Movement emerged as the largest party in Brussels and Wallonia.
| | New Flemish Alliance | 1,167,061 | 16.71 | +0.68 | 24 | –1 |
| | Vlaams Belang | 961,601 | 13.77 | +1.82 | 20 | +2 |
| | Reformist Movement | 716,934 | 10.26 | +2.70 | 20 | +6 |
| | Workers' Party of Belgium | 688,369 | 9.86 | +1.23 | 15 | +3 |
| | Vooruit | 566,436 | 8.11 | +1.40 | 13 | +4 |
| | Socialist Party | 561,602 | 8.04 | –1.42 | 16 | –4 |
| | Christian Democratic and Flemish | 557,392 | 7.98 | –0.91 | 11 | –1 |
| | Les Engagés | 472,755 | 6.77 | +3.07 | 14 | +9 |
| | Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats | 380,659 | 5.45 | –3.09 | 7 | –5 |
| | Groen | 324,608 | 4.65 | –1.46 | 6 | –2 |
| | Ecolo | 204,438 | 2.93 | –3.22 | 3 | –10 |
| | DéFI | 84,024 | 1.20 | –1.02 | 1 | –1 |
| | Blanco Party [nl] | 75,683 | 1.08 | New | 0 | New |
| | Chez Nous | 64,058 | 0.92 | New | 0 | New |
| | Voor U [nl] | 43,346 | 0.62 | New | 0 | New |
| | Citizen Collective | 35,706 | 0.51 | +0.20 | 0 | 0 |
| | Team Fouad Ahidar | 24,826 | 0.36 | New | 0 | New |
| | Belgische Unie – Union Belge | 15,780 | 0.23 | +0.13 | 0 | 0 |
| | DierAnimal | 10,341 | 0.15 | –0.56 | 0 | 0 |
| | Volt Belgium | 7,245 | 0.10 | +0.08 | 0 | 0 |
| | Lutte Ouvrière [nl] | 6,552 | 0.09 | +0.01 | 0 | 0 |
| | L'Unie | 5,640 | 0.08 | New | 0 | New |
| | Reprise en Main Citoyenne | 4,025 | 0.06 | New | 0 | New |
| | Agora | 3,473 | 0.05 | New | 0 | New |
| | Gezond Verstand | 2,352 | 0.03 | New | 0 | New |
| Total | Total | 6,984,906 | 100.00 | – | 150 | 0 |
| Valid votes | Valid votes | 6,984,906 | 94.37 | | | |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 416,577 | 5.63 | | | |
| Total votes | Total votes | 7,401,483 | 100.00 | | | |
| Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | 8,368,029 | 88.45 | | | |
| Source: IBZ |||||||

### Senate

Since the sixth state reform of 2011, the Senate is no longer directly elected. The regional parliaments elect 50 senators based on the results of the concurrent regional elections (the Flemish Parliament elects 29, the Parliament of the French Community elects ten, the Walloon Parliament elects eight, the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region elects two Francophone senators and the Parliament of the German-speaking Community elects one). The elected senators in turn co-opt 10 senators (six Dutch-speaking and four Francophone), who are allocated based on the preceding election results of the Chamber of Representatives, making a total of 60 senators.
The distribution of seats among parties resulted as following:
| Party | Party | Seats | Seats | Seats | Seats |
| Party | Party | Elected | Co-opted | Total | +/– |
| | New Flemish Alliance | 8 | 2 | 10 | +1 |
| | Vlaams Belang | 7 | 1 | 8 | +1 |
| | Reformist Movement | 7 | 1 | 8 | +1 |
| | Workers' Party | 5 | 1 | 6 | +1 |
| | Socialist Party | 5 | 1 | 6 | –1 |
| | Vooruit | 4 | 0 | 4 | +1 |
| | Christian Democratic and Flemish | 4 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| | Les Engagés | 4 | 1 | 5 | +3 |
| | Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats | 2 | 1 | 3 | –2 |
| | Groen | 2 | 0 | 2 | –2 |
| | Ecolo | 1 | 0 | 1 | –4 |
| | ProDG | 1 | 0 | 1 | +1 |
| | Perspectives. Freedom. Progress. | 0 | 0 | 0 | –1 |
| Total | Total | 50 | 9 | 59 | –1 |

## Aftermath

Following the release of the election results, Alexander De Croo announced his resignation as Prime Minister effective on 10 June. After this, he will remain as caretaker prime minister until a new federal government is formed. Tom Ongena also announced his resignation as party leader, and ruled out Open Vld's participation in the next government. Of the French-speaking parties, François De Smet [fr], chair of Défi, and Paul Magnette, president of PS, also submitted their resignation, though Magnette's resignation was rejected by the party's board.
The New Flemish Alliance's (N-VA) Bart De Wever claimed victory. Even though Vlaams Belang came second, its leader Tom Van Grieken expressed disappointment, as the party was expected to overtake N-VA to become the biggest in Flanders. In Wallonia, Reformist Movement's (MR) president Georges-Louis Bouchez emphasized the electorate's willingness for change, after his party gained more votes than PS for the first time in decades.
According to political analysts, the most obvious federal coalition would consist of the right-wing N-VA and MR, and centre-left Vooruit, with the centrist CD&V and Les Engagés parties to reach at least 76 seats. Other coalitions are ruled out, following the decision of Open Vld and PS to be part of the opposition. Vlaams Belang is not expected to be part of the government at any level, due to the cordon sanitaire.
Exploratory coalition talks started on 10 June, the day after the elections. As is tradition, party leaders are individually invited to an audience with the King, starting with the biggest parties. On 11 June, the MR and Les Engagés announced a preliminary agreement to form a government in the Walloon parliament, following the regional elections. As part of the agreement, the two parties would form a partnership during government formation talks at the federal level.
On 31 January 2025, a governmental agreement was reached between the Arizona parties, with De Wever being sworn in as prime minister on 3 February 2025.