MCC Votes & Seats Podcast – Election insight
Az MCC Politikatudományi Műhelyének beszélgetéssorozatában szakértők és politikusok segítségével azt elemezzük, hogy a különböző európai országokban aktuálisan zajló parlamenti és önkormányzati választásoknak mely szereplők a valódi nyertesei és mi tekinthető igazi győzelemnek a szavazások után.
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With the help of local guest experts, in the podcast series of the MCC Center for Political Science, we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary elections taking place throughout Europe, and what exactly can be considered an ultimate victory after the ballot counts.
MCC Votes & Seats Podcast – Election insight
Lost in the Maze of Ballot Papers? – The 2024 Belgian Federal Election
2024 is an exciting year in European politics not only because of the European Parliament (EP) election but also a number of national elections already or to be held this year across the member states. The Belgian federal election is definitely one to be mentioned, which was due on the same day as the EP election, 9 June 2024. In addition, Belgians had to elect the members of the regional parliaments as well. Belgian politics is itself interesting and unusual due to the state’s strongly federal character, resulting in a complex division of legislative and executive powers between the community, regional and federal levels.
In the latest episode of MCC’s Votes & Seats podcast series, Szabolcs Janik (senior researcher, Center for Political Science) had the honor to discuss the results and consequences of the Belgian federal election with Bjarn Eck, PhD-researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. According to our guest, the most surprising development was the weaker-than-expected performance of Vlaams Belang (VB), a Flemish right-wing nationalist party, strongly advocating for the independence of Flanders. It was also yet to be seen whether the cordon sanitaire erected around VB by mainstream parties would last after the election. It seemingly will, as the absolute winner of the federal and Flemish elections, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) ruled out the possibility of governing together with Tom Van Grieken’s party. Instead, as Mr. Eck argues, N-VA is likely to start coalition talks with the Flemish Christian democrats (CD&V), the conservative liberal Reformist Movement as the winner in Walloon, and a centrist power called Les Engagés also from Walloon. From our current podcast episode, you can also learn about the key campaign topics and party positions on them, or how different elections together make up the overall Belgian political landscape.
With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.