Belgium Federal election 2024 — Results

At a glance

Belgium's federal election of 9 June 2024, held alongside the regional and European votes, produced a marked shift to the right and a historic realignment in the south. The New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) held on as the largest party with 16.71% and 24 seats, fending off the far-right Vlaams Belang (13.77%, 20), whose long-predicted breakthrough fell short. The real upheaval came in Wallonia, where the liberal Reformist Movement (MR) overtook the Socialist Party (PS) for the first time in decades, both winning 20 and 16 seats respectively nationally. The far-left PVDA-PTB rose to 15 seats and the centrist Les Engagés to 14. Turnout was 88.45%.

Political system

Belgium is a federal parliamentary monarchy in which the federal government must hold the confidence of the directly elected Chamber of Representatives, while extensive powers are devolved to the Regions and Communities. The 2024 vote was the first held under a constitutional change lowering the voting age for European elections to 16, though the federal franchise remained at 18. As ever, the central challenge was assembling a federal coalition acceptable to both language groups.

A divided party system

Belgian politics runs on two separate party systems. In Dutch-speaking Flanders the contest is among the N-VA, Vlaams Belang, CD&V, Open Vld, Vooruit, Groen and the PVDA; in Francophone Wallonia and Brussels among the PS, MR, Les Engagés, Ecolo, DéFI and the PTB. Voters choose only lists in their own language group, so the federal result is effectively two regional elections fused into one parliament, and any government must bridge them.

Electoral system

The 150 seats are allocated by proportional representation (D'Hondt) across 11 constituencies — the ten provinces and Brussels-Capital — with a 5% constituency threshold and compulsory voting. The map colours each region by its leading party: the N-VA in Flanders, and — in the night's defining story — the MR in both Wallonia and Brussels.

The campaign trail

The economy, purchasing power and the cost of living dominated the campaign on both sides of the language border, alongside migration and security in Flanders. Pre-election polling had suggested Vlaams Belang might finally overtake the N-VA as the largest Flemish party, raising the spectre of a far-right plurality; in the event Bart De Wever's N-VA held the lead. In Wallonia, Georges-Louis Bouchez's MR ran an energetic liberal campaign against a PS weakened by years in regional power.

Main parties

The leading parties were the N-VA (Bart De Wever); Vlaams Belang (Tom Van Grieken); the MR (Georges-Louis Bouchez), the night's big Francophone winner; the declining PS (Paul Magnette); the surging far-left PVDA-PTB; and Les Engagés (Maxime Prévot), the rebranded former cdH, which advanced strongly.

Result and government formation

The rightward shift, and the MR's triumph in the south, opened the way for a centre-right federal coalition. After eight months of negotiations, the so-called "Arizona" coalition — the N-VA, MR, Les Engagés, CD&V and Vooruit, named for the colours of the Arizona state flag — took office on 3 February 2025 with Bart De Wever as prime minister, the first Flemish nationalist and the first N-VA figure to lead a Belgian government. Its programme combined budget consolidation, pension and labour-market reform, and a tougher line on migration.

Compared with last time

Against 2019, the headline change was the collapse of the PS's historic dominance in Wallonia and the rise of the MR and Les Engagés, together with a general drift to the right that, unusually, produced a government led by the largest party rather than around it.

The far-right test

The election had been widely framed as a test of whether Vlaams Belang could become the largest party in Flanders and force a reckoning with the cordon sanitaire — the long-standing refusal of other parties to govern with the far right. By holding first place, the N-VA defused that scenario, and the cordon held once again: Vlaams Belang, despite winning 20 seats, was kept out of the coalition talks. The result allowed a centre-right government to form without the far right, even as Vlaams Belang remained a powerful opposition presence and a permanent pressure on the N-VA's right flank.

Brussels and the realignment

The MR's first-place finish in both Wallonia and bilingual Brussels marked the most significant Francophone realignment in a generation. For decades the Parti Socialiste had been the natural party of government in the south, anchored in the industrial basins of Hainaut and Liège; its eclipse by Bouchez's liberals, together with the rise of Les Engagés and the far-left PTB, fragmented the Francophone left and reshaped the balance of Belgian coalition politics.

Turnout

Turnout of 88.45% again reflected compulsory voting, ensuring the result rested on the participation of nearly the whole electorate. Because almost everyone votes, Belgian elections capture shifts in the broad public mood with little distortion from selective turnout — making the 2024 rightward swing across both language communities all the more striking as a genuine movement of opinion.

Official data source

Federal Public Service Interior (IBZ) election results — verkiezingen.fgov.be.

Compiled and reviewed from official results by ElectioMap. See our data methodology.