2007 Belgian federal election

These Flemish parties field candidates in the regions of Flanders and the partially bilingual electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

The Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) is a Christian Democratic party that has formed an alliance with the Flemish nationalist party New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA). Most polls in the run-up to the election suggested that the alliance would win the election and become the largest political force in Flanders. It is led by Yves Leterme, current prime minister of the Flemish Region and Community.

Having become the largest political party in the Belgian Chamber after the 2007 election, the alliance will become the fulcrum of the coalition talks for a new government. Commentators suggest that coalition talks will be difficult, as most Francophone parties see the alliance as being overly Flemish-dominated.

It was the first time that the Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang, VB) had taken part in federal elections under its new name. Ostracized by all other political parties because of its views on foreigners and immigration, the VB is unlikely to take part in a new government. The VB's lists also included members of the right-liberal Flemish Liberal Independent Tolerant and Transparent party (VLOTT) of Hugo Coveliers.

The Socialistische Partij Anders is a social-democratic party and has formed a cartel list with the Flemish regionalist and left liberal party Spirit. Like their coalition partner VLD, they lost heavily in the election, which prompted sp.a party leader Johan Vande Lanotte to step down. Vande Lanotte made it also clear that the alliance will not take part in a federal government whose sole concern is state reform.

Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open Vld) is the alliance list of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD) of prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, and the small liberal political parties Vivant (left-liberal) and Liberal Appeal (Liberaal Appèl) (right-liberal).

The VLD has seen some infighting in the last years, resulting in two prominent members leaving the party, Hugo Coveliers (VLOTT) and Jean-Marie Dedecker (Lijst Dedecker). After the 2006 municipal elections, the party had tried to revamp itself with the newly named Open Vld cartel, under direction of noted political strategist Noël Slangen.

Groen! is an ecological party, and the successor of Agalev. It hoped to make a return to the federal legislature after being wiped out in the 2003 general election. They managed to return to the Belgian parliament with four House seats and one senate seat, but their result of 6.3% was below expectations.[5]

List Dedecker (Lijst Dedecker) is a liberal offshoot of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats, founded by Belgian Senator Jean-Marie Dedecker and Boudewijn Bouckaert, chairman of the Nova Civitas think tank. The party surprised some who doubted it would clear the 5% electoral threshold by receiving 6.3% of the Flemish vote.

The Workers Party of Belgium (Partij van de Arbeid van België) is a radical left wing party, of Maoist origin. Its lists also contain independent candidates. The PVDA almost doubled their votes, from 0.5% to 0.9%.

The Committee for Another Policy (Comité voor een Andere Politiek) is a bilingual left wing political movement, consisting of trade union militants, and political militants of communist, Trotskyist and socialist origin. It was formed in 2006 as a reaction to the more centrist course of the SP.a. Former SP.a-representative Jef Sleeckx is one of the co-founders. These elections were the first the movement participated in. They got 0.4% of the votes in Flanders.

These Francophone parties fielded candidates in the Walloon Region and in the electoral district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

The Parti Socialiste (PS) is a social-democratic party that took part in the Verhofstadt I Government and the Verhofstadt II Government. It is unlikely that the PS will deliver Belgium's next prime minister, the last Francophone prime minister was Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1978-79. Largest competitor of the PS is the Mouvement Réformateur (MR), which just recently broke with the PS in Charleroi, after PS aldermen were charged with corruption.

The Mouvement Réformateur is a liberal party. It is a fusion of the Liberal Reformist Party (PRL), the French-linguistic party Democratic Front of Francophones (FDF) and a breakaway fraction of the Christian democratic Citizens' Movement for Change (MCC). It had taken part in the federal government of Guy Verhofstadt, which included MR leader Didier Reynders as finance minister.

The MR clearly won the elections in the French-speaking Walloon region, and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, ousting the previously dominant Parti Socialiste. The MR campaigned on three major fronts: the need for an alternative to the PS, entangled in various scandals of corruption and accused of poor governance leading to unemployment and anachronistic political systems; the need for a new fiscal reform; lowering taxes and government grip on the economy; and finally friendliness and cooperation with its Flemish counterpart, Open VLD.

The Centre Démocrate Humaniste is a Christian democratic party. They made a small advance (0.4%) in these elections and finished with 15.8% of the votes.

Ecolo is a Green party. It made the largest gains of the 2007 election among Francophone parties and went from 7.5% to 12.8%.

The Front National is a Franco-nationalist political movement known for its tough stances on immigration. They gained 5.6% of the vote, the same as in 2003.

The Committee for Another Policy (Comité pour une Autre Politique) was a bilingual left wing political movement, consisting of trade union militants, and political militants of communist, Trotskyist and socialist origin. It was formed in 2006 as a reaction to the more centrist course of the PS and the SP.a. Former FGTB-chairman Georges Debunne was one of the co-founders. These elections were the first the movement participated in. The party got 0.2% of the votes in Hainaut and Liège, the two provinces where its candidates stood.

CD&V used the theme of good governance as a breaking point against sp.a and VLD. The party claimed that unlike in the Flemish Government, where CD&V leader Leterme heads a tripartite government, with CD&V, VLD and sp.a, the federal government lacked good governance. sp.a and VLD tried to counter this charge with similar examples in the Flemish Government of practices which CD&V accused them of.

With the federal elections looming, the problem of the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (B-H-V) re-emerged. Because the federal government failed to comply with a ruling of the Court of Arbitration which declared the provincial electoral districts compared to the two remaining arrondisemental ones in the former province of Brabant unconstitutional. According to the ruling of the Court of Arbitration the current situation would make federal elections impossible after 24 June 2007, so the new government will have to solve the situation. Several mayors in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde area have threatened and actually have refused to compile the lists of electors. The governor took over their task.

Professor and constitutional expert Paul Van Orshoven from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven declared that the elections would be unconstitutional. According to Van Orshoven there were two problems:

• As the previous election was held on Sunday 18 May 2003, the final date to hold elections (four years from the previous) would be Sunday, 13 May 2007.
• The Court of Arbitration gave the government the time to fix the B-H-V problem until the next elections. That hasn't happened, which means that the election results could be declared void.

During the campaign new irregularities and corruption in PS-lead Charleroi emerged. The MR started using this as an example of why things in Wallonia under PS management were bad. The campaign became hostile and personal attacks between various MR, cdH and PS leaders dominated the campaign.

In the run-up to the election, Johan Vande Lanotte, leader of the Socialist Party – Different, refused to acknowledge the Turkish genocide on its Armenian minority in the midst of a controversy about the strong allegiance to Turkey expressed in Turkish at a meeting by a Turkish-Belgian CD&V Senate candidate, Ergün Top,[6][7] but also in the aftermath of a similar problem aroused during the campaign for the Dutch general election a few months earlier. The position of Yves Leterme (CD&V) on this issue was unclear at first, but he later confided to the Flemish parliament that he does acknowledge the Armenian genocide.[8][9]

In 1998, the Belgian Senate had already passed a resolution acknowledging the Armenian genocide, including the support of SP (later sp.a) and CVP (later CD&V) senators.[10][11]

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	CD&V–New Flemish Alliance	1,234,950	18.51	+2.20	30	+8
	Mouvement Réformateur	835,073	12.52	+1.12	23	–1
	Vlaams Belang	799,844	11.99	+0.40	17	–1
	Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten	789,445	11.83	–3.53	18	–7
	Parti Socialiste	724,787	10.86	–2.16	20	–5
	Socialistische Partij Anders–Spirit	684,390	10.26	–4.65	14	–9
	Centre démocrate humaniste	404,077	6.06	+0.59	10	+2
	Ecolo	340,378	5.10	+2.04	8	+4
	Lijst Dedecker	268,648	4.03	New	5	New
	Groen!	265,828	3.98	+1.51	4	+4
	National Front	131,385	1.97	–0.01	1	0
	Workers' Party of Belgium	56,167	0.84	+0.53	0	0
	Rassemblement Wallonie France	26,240	0.39	+0.00	0	0
	Committee for Another Policy	20,083	0.30	New	0	New
	Communist Party of Belgium	19,329	0.29	+0.19	0	0
	Chrétiens démocrates fédéraux	11,961	0.18	–0.40	0	0
	Front Nouveau de Belgique	9,010	0.14	+0.04	0	0
	Wallon	8,688	0.13	New	0	New
	Belgian Union	8,607	0.13	+0.09	0	0
	National Force	6,660	0.10	New	0	New
	Vivant	5,742	0.09	–0.35	0	0
	Parti jeunes musulmans	4,373	0.07	New	0	New
	Parti Wallon	3,139	0.05	New	0	New
	Vrijheid, Intimiteit, Thuis, Arbeid en Liefde	1,780	0.03	+0.01	0	0
	Nieuwe Partij – Fervent Nationaal	1,605	0.02	New	0	New
	Vélorution	1,453	0.02	New	0	New
	Union pour un mouvement populaire – Belgique	1,408	0.02	New	0	New
	MP Éducation	1,362	0.02	New	0	New
	Trefle	920	0.01	New	0	New
	Front des Bruxellois	901	0.01	New	0	New
	Belgique Positif	880	0.01	New	0	New
	Unie	856	0.01	New	0	New
	Pluralis	757	0.01	New	0	New
	Droit et libertés des citoyens	464	0.01	New	0	New
	Groupe social des citoyens démocrates	170	0.00	New	0	New
Total		6,671,360	100.00	–	150	0
Valid votes		6,671,360	94.87
Invalid/blank votes		360,717	5.13
Total votes		7,032,077	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,720,796	91.08
Source: IBZ

The newly constituted Chamber met for the first time on Thursday 28 June 2007, when the Representatives took the oath of office.

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	CD&V–New Flemish Alliance	1,287,389	19.42	+3.65	9	+3
	Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten	821,980	12.40	–2.98	5	–2
	Mouvement Réformateur	815,755	12.31	+0.16	6	+1
	Vlaams Belang	787,782	11.89	+0.57	5	0
	Parti Socialiste	678,812	10.24	–2.60	4	–2
	Socialistische Partij Anders–Spirit	665,342	10.04	–5.43	4	–3
	Centre démocrate humaniste	390,852	5.90	+0.36	2	0
	Ecolo	385,466	5.82	+2.63	2	+1
	Groen!	241,151	3.64	+1.18	1	+1
	Lijst Dedecker	223,992	3.38	New	1	New
	National Front	150,461	2.27	+0.02	1	0
	Workers' Party of Belgium	54,807	0.83	+0.01	0	0
	Rassemblement Wallonie France	32,094	0.48	+0.06	0	0
	Committee for Another Policy	21,215	0.32	New	0	New
	Communist Party of Belgium	19,632	0.30	New	0	New
	National Force	14,866	0.22	New	0	New
	Chrétiens démocrates fédéraux	13,319	0.20	–0.39	0	0
	NEE	12,115	0.18	New	0	New
	Stijn	11,097	0.17	New	0	New
Total		6,628,127	100.00	–	40	0
Valid votes		6,628,127	94.25
Invalid/blank votes		404,257	5.75
Total votes		7,032,384	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		7,720,796	91.08
Source: IBZ

21 Community Senators and 10 Coopted Senators were also be appointed. The definite distribution is not known. On Thursday 28 June 2007, the directly-elected Senators took the oath of office. One week later, on 5 July 2007, the Community Senators took the oath, and two weeks later, on 12 July 2007, the Coopted Senators took the oath. On that day, the Senate was fully constituted.[12][13]