Socialist Party (Belgium)


The Socialist Party is a social democratic French-speaking political party in Belgium. As of the 2024 elections, it is the fourth largest party in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and the second largest Francophone party. The party is led by Paul Magnette. The party supplies the minister-president of the French Community, and the Brussels-Capital Region. In the German-speaking Community, the party is known as the Sozialistische Partei.
The PS is very commonly part of governing coalitions, and dominates most local authorities because of the extremely fragmented nature of Belgian political institutions, particularly in Francophone areas. In the years since 1999, the PS has simultaneously controlled five regional executive bodies: the Government of the French Community, the Walloon Government, the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the COCOF, a local subsidiary in Brussels of the French Community Government, and the Government of the German-speaking Community.
The party, or its members, have from time to time been brought into connection with criminal activities and political scandals, mostly concerning bribery and financial fraud. The Carolorégienne affair caused Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe to step down as minister-president of Wallonia.

Ideology

The PS is a social democratic political party. It is generally positioned in the centre-left or left of the political spectrum.
On its current platform, the party identifies as progressive and eco-socialist. It advocates for traditional socialist values such as equality, social justice, and solidarity. It is also committed to tax reform, better and more accessible health care, expanding the social safety net, and strengthening women's rights.

Electoral positioning

During the 2019 election campaign, the RePresent research centre — composed of political scientists from five universities — studied the electoral programmes of Belgium's thirteen main political parties. This study classified the parties on two "left-right" axes, from "-5" to "5" : a "classic" socio-economic axis, which refers to state intervention in the economic process and the degree to which the state should ensure social equality, and a socio-cultural axis, which refers to a divide articulated around an identity-based opposition on themes such as immigration, Europe, crime, the environment, emancipation, etc.
The PS then presented the most left-wing programme, along with the PTB, on the socio-economic level, and also left-wing on the socio-cultural level.
The RePresent centre repeated the exercise during the 2024 election campaign for the twelve main parties. The PS's positioning shifted towards the centre, while remaining on the left, on the socio-economic axis and remained unchanged on the socio-cultural axis.

Presidents

Sources:
In the European Parliament, the PS sits in the S&D group with two MEPs: Elio Di Rupo and Estelle Ceulemans.

Election results

The PS performed well in the 2003 general election but was overtaken as the largest Francophone party by the Reformist Movement in the 2007 general election.
In the 10 June 2007 general elections, the party won 20 out of 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 4 out of 40 seats in the Senate. The PS was a member of the Leterme I Government, Van Rompuy I Government, Leterme II Government and Di Rupo I Government of 6 December 2011, with former PS leader Elio Di Rupo serving as prime minister of Belgium.

Chamber of Representatives

Timeline

Results for the Chamber of Representatives, in percentages for the Kingdom of Belgium.

ImageSize = width:650 height:210
PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100
AlignBars = justify
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:16
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2 start:0
PlotData=
bar:% color:red width:22 mark: align:center
bar:1978 from:start till:13.1 text:"13.1"
bar:1981 from:start till:12.7 text:"12.7"
bar:1985 from:start till:13.8 text:"13.8"
bar:1987 from:start till:15.6 text:"15.6"
bar:1991 from:start till:13.5 text:"13.5"
bar:1995 from:start till:11.9 text:"11.9"
bar:1999 from:start till:10.2 text:"10.2"
bar:2003 from:start till:13.0 text:"13.0"
bar:2007 from:start till:10.86 text:"10.86"
bar:2010 from:start till:13.70 text:"13.70"
bar:2014 from:start till:11.67 text:"11.67"
bar:2019 from:start till:9.46 text:"9.46"

Senate

Regional

Brussels Parliament

Walloon Parliament

German-speaking Community Parliament

European Parliament

Notable figures