The 2024 Belgian provincial, municipal and district elections took place on Sunday 13 October 2024, four months after the simultaneous European, federal and regional elections.
The local elections were organised by the respective regions: Brussels with 19 municipalities Flanders with 5 provinces and 285 municipalities (down from 300) In the city of Antwerp, elections were also held for its 10 districts (up from 9) Wallonia with 5 provinces and 261 municipalities (one fewer) In the German-speaking Community, the elections are organised by that community rather than the Walloon Region
In the municipalities with language facilities of Voeren, Comines-Warneton and the 6 of the Brussels Periphery, the aldermen and members of the OCMW/CPAS council are directly elected.
As reflected in the number of municipalities above, some municipalities were merging. One of them, Borsbeek, merged with the city of Antwerp, becoming its tenth district. In Wallonia, only Bastogne and Bertogne were merging. The mergers took effect following the 2024 elections, on the 1 January 2025, when the councils of the newly formed entities were elected.
Brussels The municipal councils of the 19 municipalities were elected.
Voting is obligatory in Brussels and Walloon local elections.
Flanders The Flemish decree of 16 July 2021 reformed the local electoral process, abolishing compulsory voting in Flemish local elections. Voting remains obligatory in Brussels and Walloon local elections.
The decree also changed several election rules for Flemish municipal elections: the list vote is abolished; only preference votes placed on specific candidates count. The candidate with the highest number of preferences vote of the list with the most votes (as per votes placed on candidates) has the exclusive right to form a coalition during two weeks. The candidate with the largest number of preference votes belonging to the most-popular party within the formed coalition will be mayor by law. This incentivises forming larger, joint lists instead of smaller, separate ones.
Turnout was lower than expected, with on average 63.6% of voters casting a ballot. Eeklo had the lowest turnout and Mesen the highest.
Electoral system Municipal councils were elected by the Imperiali highest averages method, a form of open-list party-list proportional representation.
Municipal elections Antwerp Two-term mayor Bart De Wever (N-VA) was a candidate to continue governing the most populous city, Antwerp. Main challenger was PVDA with Jos D'Haese.
Gent Open Vld (with mayor Mathias De Clercq) and Groen (with first alderman ) were the two main political parties since the 2018 elections. The current governing coalition is composed of Vooruit-Groen (a joint list in 2018), Open Vld and CD&V. Open Vld and Vooruit formed a joint "Voor Gent" list, opposing a Groen list.
Mechelen Bart Somers, mayor of Mechelen since 2001, became Flemish minister in 2019 but returned as mayor in November 2023. He headed the "Voor Mechelen" list, composed of the Open Vld, Groen and M+ governing coalition. Raes controversy In September 2024, the Vlaams Belang sparked controversy by putting Roeland Raes who had previously been convicted of Holocaust denial as one of its candidates in the upcoming municipal elections before removing his candidacy the following day.
Provincial elections The provincial councils of Antwerp, Flemish Brabant, East Flanders, West Flanders and Limburg were elected. Councillors are elected for a six-year term, starting on the first working day in December following the elections, thus 2 December 2024.
Party Total Votes % Seats Votes % Seats Votes % Seats Votes % Seats Votes % Seats Votes % Seats N-VA 264,316 32.9% 15 171,646 22.7% 9 128,407 24.7% 10 81,440 20.8% 7 116,955 20.3% 7 762,764 25.6% ( 0.8pp) 48 ( 2) CD&V 116,862 14.5% 5 122,887 16.9% 7 93,141 17.9% 7 99,157 25.4% 10 147,814 25.6% 11 579,861 19.5% ( 0.2pp) 40 () Vlaams Belang 144,483 18% 7 132,756 18.2% 7 66,927 12.9% 5 69,910 17.9% 6 112,896 19.6% 8 526,972 17.7% ( 4.7pp) 33 ( 9) Vooruit 88,127 11% 4 101,031 13.9% 5 66,626 12.8% 5 56,456 14.4% 4 91,389 15.8% 6 403,629 13.5% ( 3.1pp) 24 ( 6) Groen 81,116 10.1% 3 86,732 11.9% 4 52,689 10.1% 3 19,672 5% 1 37,850 7.3% 2 278,059 9.3% ( 3.9pp) 13 ( 8) Open Vld 37,423 4.7% 0 82,267 11.3% 4 55,464 10.7% 4 41,799 12.7% 3 46,364 8% 2 263,317 8.8% ( 4.9pp) 13 ( 10) PVDA 51,405 4.5% 1 31,633 4.1% 0 19,555 3.8% 0 16,307 4.2% 0 14,436 2.5% 0 133,336 4.7% ( 1.5pp) 1 () Others 13,378 1.7% 0 7,219 0.9% 0 5,864 1.1% 0 7,807 1.4% 0 6,443 1.6% 0 40,711 1.3% ( 0.3pp) 0 UF — — 31,428 6% 2 — — 31,428 0.7% 2 ( 3) Total 767,110 100% 36 736,171 100% 36 478,503 100% 36 423,976 100% 31 574,147 100% 36 2,979,907 100% 175
Wallonia
The five provincial councils and the municipal councils were elected.
In eight municipalities, only one electoral list was submitted: their candidates were automatically elected. This was the case in Herbeumont, Houffalize, Rouvroy, Anhée, Bièvre, Vresse-sur-Semois, Limbourg and Verlaine.
References
External links
Local elections - Flemish Government website Municipal elections - Brussels Government website Local elections - Walloon Government website Municipal elections - German-speaking Community website