2024 Belgian local elections


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:
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 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 was a candidate to continue governing the most populous city, Antwerp. Main challenger was PVDA with Jos D'Haese.
;Gent
Open Vld and Groen were the two main political parties since the 2018 elections. The current governing coalition is composed of Vooruit-Groen, 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.

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.