The second big election in Belgium this year has come and gone with little or no fanfare outside of its borders.
But the local elections at the weekend, which followed close on the heels of national and Euro elections earlier in the year, did spark keen interest within the country itself and the results in at least one constituency raised a few eyebrows.
The overall result of Sunday’s elections saw gains for some, losses for others but no massive shocks. The Greens Ecolo and Groen suffered some losses,the centre-right parties MR and Les Engagés made gains while the Belgian Workers Party (PTB-PVDA) also gained a foothold in a few municipalities.
The biggest arguably shock came in Flanders where, in Ninove, the “Forza Ninove” list of Vlaams Belang (it supports independence for Flanders) obtained an absolute majority of seats with a 47.4% share of the vote.
The local elections were the first where voting was not compulsory in Flanders, and, with a turn out of about 63percent, many voters there did not vote.
Voting in Belgium is, in theory, compulsory and you run the risk of a fine if you fail to show up to vote.
For a country the size and population of Belgium, the fiendishly convoluted web of its political system can be confusing.
Briton Bryn Watkins is a long term resident in Belgium and close observer of its electoral system. He told this website: “Municipalities in Belgium are a lot more independent than their equivalents in most other countries. They can make their own policies or modify the implementation of regional/federal policies in all sorts of areas where they are competent: streets and mobility, cleanliness and security etc.
“The people and parties we elect at municipal level make decisions that really change our daily lives.”
He adds, “Municipalities in Belgium manage and deliver more services than their equivalents in most other countries: Registration of foreigners and applying for nationality, (some) schools, planning permits, social services and assistance, etc. The people and parties we elect at municipal level directly manage the local civil servants who deliver most of the public administration that we interact with as residents of Belgium.”
Belgium, of course, is not alone in employing a federal system to run its internal affairs.
In Switzerland, the same applies with the electorate having their say on many local, regional and national issues. Indeed (unlike in Belgium), every year, the Swiss decide in hundreds of referendums on issues that directly affect people at the local level.
Belgium has, since it became a federal system way back in 1970, had layer upon layer of government. They are at just about every level, from the national, municipal, regional, provincial and communal. The system invariably leaves the country facing months (sometimes years) of painfully slow negotiations in order to find a working coalition).
Looking to the future, a new study concludes that the system in Belgium could be too complex to remain sustainable in the long term.
The study, by a team from both the UCLouvain university and the Leuven Institute of Data Analysis and Monitoring, cites the “weight, complexity and dysfunction of our political institutions” and concludes: “This multiplication of power levels and political structures entails significant costs and chronic inaction.”
