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Belgium just had its Parliamentary elections. The country defines itself as a federal parliamentary democratic monarchy. Belgium is territorially divided in the regions of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. The Federal Parliament has two chambers. The Chamber of People’s Representatives has 150 members, elected for a four year term by proportional representation. The Senate has 71 members, 40 members elected for a four year term by proportional representation and 31 members elected by the elected members.

In practical terms this means that Belgians were asked to vote for the Federal Senate and within each of the three regions for a specific Chamber of People’s Representatives.

The outgoing government, known as the “rainbow” coalition was composed by the centre right VLD (Flemish), PRL-FDF-MCC (French), the centre left PS (French), SP (Flemish), and greens Ecolo (French) and Agalev (Flemish). Quite a mix when you think about it. The inclusion of the greens in this goverment, in retrospect was a mistake on the part of the electorate. They were elected through a surprising reactionary vote in 1999 and were very ill equipped for the job. Even through the goverment managed to stay in place for nearly the entire term (the greens resigned 2 weeks before the election) the green parties, Agalev and Ecolo, were in trouble most of way through.

It is therefore not surprising that the greens suffered a crushing defeat in this election nearly wiping them off the political landcape. Their lost votes seem to have benefited the centre left party most making them the largest party in Belgium with the centre right just behind them.

Even though it is still too early to be defnite, Belgians feel confident that the next goverment will be formed of a red and blue coalition. Although such a coalition is not uncommon in Belgium the surprise lies in the fact that the centre left is reelected into government after having served a full term. This has never happened before and conforts them into thinking that they have done a great deal of work to improve their position, and exercise of power, over the last decade.

The new goverment will most likely be composed of the VLD, MR, PS and SP. Besides the apparently opposing backgrounds of the right and the left this will also continue to fuel the linguistic and cultural issues which divide Belgium in the Dutch and French speaking communities.

There is a local term for this: “Belgian compromise”…