Belgian regional elections, 2004
On 13 June 2004, regional elections were held in Belgium, to choose representatives in the regional councils of the Flemish Parliament, the Walloon Parliament, the Brussels Parliament and the German-speaking Community of Belgium. The elections were held on the same day as the European elections.
Flemish Parliament
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All 124 seats in the Flemish Parliament 62 seats needed for a majority | ||
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← 1999 • 2004 • 2009 → | ||||||||||
Party | Main ideology | Main candidate | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | +/– | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FLA | BRU | TOT | ||||||||
Christian Democratic & Flemish (CD&V) + New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) | Christian democracy | Yves Leterme | 1,060,580 | 26.09 | 4.0 | 34 | 1 | 35 | 5 | |
Flemish Block (VB) | far-right Flemish nationalism | Filip Dewinter | 981,587 | 24.15 | 8.4 | 29 | 3 | 32 | 10 | |
Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD) + Vivant (VIVANT) | Liberalism | Bart Somers | 804,578 | 19.79 | 3.9 | 24 | 1 | 25 | 2 | |
Socialist Party–Differently (SP.A) + Spirit (SPIRIT) | Social democracy | Frank Vandenbroucke | 799,325 | 19.66 | 4.9 | 24 | 1 | 25 | 6 | |
Green! (GROEN!) | Green politics | Rudi Daems | 308,898 | 7.60 | 3.9 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 6 | |
Union of Francophones (UF) | Francophone minority politics | Christian Van Eyken | 43,391 | 1.07 | 0.1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
Others (parties and candidates that received less than 1% of the vote and no seats) | 66,387 | 1.59 | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |||
Valid votes | 4,064,746 | 94.87 | ||||||||
Blank and invalid votes | 219,910 | 5.13 | ||||||||
Totals | 4,284,656 | 100.00 | — | 118 | 6 | 124 | 0 | |||
Electorate (eligible voters) and voter turnout | * 4,568,250 | 93.79 | 1.61 | |||||||
Notes: FLA = Flanders, BRU = Brussels (Capital Region), TOT = total / * = The number of registered voters is not known for the constituency to elect the Brussels Members of the Flemish Council (BMFC). Consequently, the number of registered voters and the turnout for the Flemish Council considers only the 5 provincial constituencies, excluding the constituency BMFC. |
In the Flemish Parliament election, the liberal-socialist government was put to the test. The far right Vlaams Blok became the second largest party in Flanders just after the alliance of conservatives Christian Democratic and Flemish-New Flemish Alliance (CD&V - N-VA). The green party Groen! managed to be elected and keeps half of their seats in the parliament. In contrast with the previous election, the People's Union (VU-ID) has split and the new parties, N-VA and Spirit, allied with CD&V and Different Socialist Party (SP.A) respectively.
Because of the cordon sanitaire of all the other parties against Vlaams Blok, a coalition of at least three parties needed to be formed in order to have a majority in the Flemish Parliament. Groen! confirmed that it did not want to take part in the new coalition, so the only coalition left was a conservative-socialist-liberal tripartite.
In the aftermath of the elections, Yves Leterme (CD&V) was selected to form a Flemish regional government.
Details
Region | Seats won per party | Total seats | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Provinces | CD&V + N-VA | VB | VLD + VIVANT | SP.A + SPIRIT | GROEN! | UF | ||
Flanders | Antwerp | 9 / 33 |
10 / 33 |
6 / 33 |
6 / 33 |
2 / 33 |
N/A | 33 / 124 |
East Flanders | 7 / 27 |
6 / 27 |
7 / 27 |
5 / 27 |
2 / 27 |
N/A | 27 / 124 | |
Flemish Brabant | 5 / 20 |
5 / 20 |
4 / 20 |
4 / 20 |
1 / 20 |
1 / 20 |
20 / 124 | |
Limburg | 5 / 16 |
4 / 16 |
3 / 16 |
4 / 16 |
N/A | N/A | 16 / 124 | |
West Flanders | 8 / 22 |
4 / 22 |
4 / 22 |
5 / 22 |
1 / 22 |
N/A | 22 / 124 | |
Brussels | 1 / 6 |
3 / 6 |
1 / 6 |
1 / 6 |
N/A | N/A | 6 / 124 | |
Total | 35 / 124 |
32 / 124 |
25 / 124 |
25 / 124 |
6 / 124 |
1 / 124 |
124 / 124 |
Walloon Regional Parliament
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All 75 seats in the Walloon Parliament 38 seats needed for a majority | ||
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← 1999 • 2004 • 2009 → | ||||||||
National party | Main ideology | Main candidate | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | +/– | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Socialist Party (PS) | Social democracy | Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe | 727,781 | 36.91 | 7.47 | 34 | 9 | |
Reformist Movement (MR) | Liberalism | Serge Kubla | 478,999 | 24.29 | * | 20 | * | |
Humanist Democratic Centre (CDH) | Christian democracy | André Antoine | 347,348 | 17.62 | 0.55 | 14 | 0 | |
Confederated Ecologists (ECOLO) | Green politics | Bernard Wesphael | 167,916 | 8.52 | 9.70 | 3 | 11 | |
National Front (FN) | Nationalism | 160,130 | 8.12 | 4.17 | 4 | 3 | ||
Rassemblement Wallonie France (RWF) | Walloon movement | 20,019 | 1.02 | new | 0 | new | ||
Others (parties and candidates that received less than 1% of the vote and no seats) | — | 0 | — | |||||
Valid votes | 1,971,705 | 93.36 | ||||||
Blank and invalid votes | 140,167 | 6.64 | ||||||
Totals | 2,111,872 | 100.00 | — | 75 | 0 | |||
Electorate (eligible voters) and voter turnout | 2,359,447 | 89.51 | 0.85 |
In the aftermath of the elections, Elio Di Rupo (PS) was selected to form a Walloon regional government.
Brussels Regional Parliament
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All 89 seats in the Flemish Parliament 45 seats needed for a majority | ||
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In the aftermath of the elections, Charles Picqué (PS) was selected to form a Brussels regional government.
French language group
Party/Alliance | Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PS | 130,462 | 33.4% | +14.7% | 26 | +13 | |
MR | 127,122 | 32.5% | −7.6% | 25 | −2 | |
CDH | 55,078 | 14.1% | +4.9% | 10 | +4 | |
Ecolo | 37,908 | 9.7% | −11.6% | 7 | −7 | |
FN | 21,195 | 5.4% | +2.4% | 4 | +2 | |
FNB | 2,656 | 1.5% | −0.8% | 0 | −1 | |
All Others | 16,795 | 4.3% | -- | 0 | 0 |
Dutch language group
Party/Alliance | Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vlaams Blok | 21,297 | 34.1% | +2.2% | 6 | +2 | |
VLD-Vivant | 12,433 | 19.9% | -- | 4 | 0 | |
SP.A-Spirit | 11,052 | 17.7% | -- | 3 | 0 | |
CD&V/N-VA | 10,482 | 16.8% | -- | 3 | 0 | |
Groen! | 6,132 | 9.8% | -- | 1 | 0 | |
All Others | 1,110 | 1.8% | -- | 0 | 0 |
Parliament of the German-speaking Community
Party/Alliance | Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CSP | 11,905 | 32.8% | −2.0% | 8 | −1 | |
PFF-MR | 7,615 | 21.0% | −0.3% | 5 | −1 | |
SP | 6,903 | 19.0% | +4.0% | 5 | +1 | |
PJU-PDB | 4,243 | 11.7% | −1.2% | 3 | ±0 | |
Ecolo | 2,972 | 8.2% | −4.5% | 2 | −1 | |
Vivant | 2,665 | 7.3% | +4.0% | 2 | +2 |