2019 Belgian federal election

The 2019 Belgian federal election took place on the same day as the 2019 European Parliament elections and the 2019 Belgian regional elections, being 26 May 2019.

In the election, all 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected in eleven multi-member constituencies.

The election saw a resurgence of far-right Vlaams Belang in Flanders as well as gains for the far-left PTB/PVDA and the green Ecolo party in Wallonia, with the traditional parties losing seats in both regions.

Background
Following the 2014 elections, a centre-right government consisting of N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and MR was formed, led by Prime Minister Charles Michel (MR). The government coalition is unique in several aspects: the N-VA participates for the first time, the MR is the only French-speaking party, and the French-speaking Socialist Party is not part of the government for the first time in 25 years.

Local elections were held on 14 October 2018. As such, the 2019 simultaneous regional, federal and European elections will be held only several months after the local elections.

In early December 2018, a political crisis emerged regarding the Global Compact for Migration, which was supposed to be signed but sparked instead opposition from government party N-VA. As the three other government parties as well as a large majority in parliament supports the compact, N-VA left the government and the three other parties continued shortly as a minority cabinet (Michel II) with unclear status. Prime Minister Michel ultimately offered his resignation to the King on 18 December 2018, who accepted it three days later. As regular elections were scheduled for May 2019 anyway, snap elections were only favoured by N-VA and Vlaams Belang and did not happen, and the minority cabinet continued as a caretaker government until the elections.

Election campaign
Despite leaving the government coalition in late 2018, it is the explicit ambition of N-VA to continue governing after the May 2019 election. In January 2019, the party put forward ex-minister Jan Jambon as candidate for Prime Minister should the party enter a coalition. A continuation of the "Swedish coalition" (N-VA, MR, CD&V and Open Vld), potentionally expanded with cdH, is a likely scenario. Outgoing Prime Minister Charles Michel (MR) is candidate to continue in his position.

Meanwhile, the French-speaking Socialist Party (PS) has the ambition to re-enter government as well, or "re-conquer" as formulated by leader Elio Di Rupo, after being in the opposition at federal level and being ousted from the Walloon government.

Additionally, there is speculation that the Flemish liberal and green parties (Open Vld and Groen) will favour cooperating, given Groen's recent rise and their local governing coalitions in cities like Mechelen, Gent and Oostende. However, their French-speaking counterparts, MR and Ecolo, are politically and ideologically further apart.

Electoral system
The 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives will be elected in 11 multi-member constituencies, being the ten provinces and Brussels, with between 4 and 24 seats. Seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method, with an electoral threshold of 5% per constituency.

Representatives elected from the five Flemish provinces, Antwerp (24), East Flanders (20), Flemish Brabant (15), Limburg (12) and West Flanders (16), automatically belong to the Dutch-speaking language group in parliament, whereas those elected from the five Walloon provinces, Hainaut (18), Liège (15), Luxembourg (4), Namur (6) and Walloon Brabant (5), form the French-speaking language group. The 15 members elected in Brussels may choose to join either group, though de facto only French-speaking parties reach the threshold. Apportionment of seats is done every ten years in accordance with population data, last by royal order of 31 January 2013.

The 60-member Senate is composed of 50 representatives from the regional and community parliaments, plus 10 co-opted senators proportionally divided among parties based on the result of the federal election.

All Belgian citizens aged 18 or over are obligated to participate in the election. Non-Belgian citizens residing in Belgium (regardless of EU citizenship) cannot vote, whereas Belgian citizens living abroad may register to vote.

Date
The 2011–14 state reform changed several aspects regarding federal elections. Starting with the May 2014 election, which coincided with European Parliament and regional elections, the federal parliament is elected for a five-year term rather than a four-year term.

The federal elections would from now on always coincide with the European Parliament elections; snap federal elections would trigger a parliamentary term lasting until the next European Parliament elections. However, as of 2017, a law needed for this to take effect has not been enacted. Given the five-year term for all three elections, they will all coincide in 2019 regardless, unless snap federal elections are called.

Additionally, de facto practice is to formally dissolve parliament and trigger new elections by Declaration of Revision of the Constitution shortly before regular expiry of the parliamentary term.

Main candidates
The following candidates are the first on the respective party list (lijsttrekker / tête de liste) per constituency.

Retiring incumbents
The following incumbent members of the Chamber of Representatives announced their retirement from (national) politics:
 * Hans Bonte (sp.a, Flemish Brabant)
 * Peter Dedecker (N-VA, East Flanders)
 * Alain Mathot (PS, Liège)
 * Laurette Onkelinx (PS, Brussels)
 * Goedele Uyttersprot (N-VA, East Flanders)
 * Dirk Van der Maelen (sp.a, East Flanders)
 * Eric Van Rompuy (CD&V, Flemish Brabant)
 * Peter Vanvelthoven (sp.a, Limburg)
 * Jan Vercammen (N-VA, West Flanders)

Aftermath
In response to the results of Vlaams Belang surging support there has been some speculation that the N-VA leader Bart De Wever may break the Cordon sanitaire imposed on the party by refusing to rule out talks with the VB as their strong results could make forming a coalition more difficult.

The election once again exposed deep linguistic and regional divisions in Belgium, with Flanders strongly voting right and Wallonia strongly voting left.

In the days following the election, King Philippe held consultations with all main party leaders, including Vlaams Belang party leader Tom Van Grieken.

On 30 May, King Philippe appointed Johan Vande Lanotte (SP.A) and Didier Reynders (MR), two experienced politicians with a long period of service, as informateurs. They reported on their progress by 6 June as expected after which they were given some more time, with a new deadline of 17 June.