In a country where voting is obligatory, seven million Belgians (out of an electorate of 7.7 million) voted to elect 22 MEPs, as well as parliaments in Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia and bilingual Brussels, for a five-year term.
The EPP-affiliated Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V) of Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy emerged as the country's biggest political force, with 15.13% of the nationwide vote and more than 23% in Flanders. The second-largest party is the liberal OpenVLD of former Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (13.02%), whose gains are nevertheless lower than those of previous polls. Third place is occupied by Vlaams Belang, whose score of 10.28% also represents a loss compared to previous scores.
In Wallonia, the Socialist Party surprisingly remained the largest force with 10.28%, despite having been hit by corruption scandals. It was closely followed by its main rival, the liberal MR, which obtained 10.19% nationally. The EPP-affiliated cdH scored 4.71%.
Political analysts said the results reflectws a deepening divide in Belgian political life. Jean-Michel de Waele, a political science professor at the Unversité Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), told EurActiv that in his view, it had been "the toughest campaign in the history of Belgium".
De Waele said that the campaign had exposed the divisions in the Belgian political scene.
He noted that on the French-speaking side, the campaign was marked by corruption scandals in the socialist camp, and on the Flemish-speaking side by the surge of populism.
The analyst also pointed to contradictory trends.
"In Flanders, the Christian Democrats are on the rise, in coalition with a small separatist party on the up, N-VA (8.1%), but their Walloon equivalent, cdH, lost ground. In Flanders, the Liberals scored well in Wallonia but plummeted in Flanders. The rise of the Greens in Wallonia is remarkable, but their equivalent is stagnant in Flanders. There are no common trends," De Waele said.
But as the political separation of the country becomes more and more clear-cut, he pointed out to one positive development: the absence of the far-right in French-speaking Belgium, while on Flemish soil, Vlaams Belang lost part of its electorate.
