Political parties in Belgium
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Belgium is a federal state with a multi-party political system, with numerous parties who factually have no chance of gaining power alone, and therefore must work with each other to form coalition governments.
Almost all Belgian political parties are divided into linguistic groups, either Dutch-speaking parties (see also political parties in Flanders), Francophone parties or Germanophone parties.
The Flemish parties operate in Flanders and in the Brussels-Capital Region. The Francophone parties operate in Wallonia and in the Brussels-Capital Region. There are also parties operating in the comparatively small German-speaking community. No party family has a realistic chance of winning enough seats to govern alone, let alone win an outright majority.
Political parties are thus organised along community lines, especially for the three main communities. There are no representative parties active in both communities. Even in Brussels, all parties presenting candidates are either Flemish parties, or French-speaking. As such, the internal organisation of the political parties reflects the fundamentally dual nature of Belgian society.
There are no significant parties left who exist, or operate on a national, Belgian level.
From the creation of the Belgian state in 1830 and throughout most of the 19th century, two political parties dominated Belgian politics: the Catholic Party (Church-oriented and conservative) and the Liberal Party (anti-clerical and progressive). In the late 19th century the Labour Party arose to represent the emerging industrial working class. These three groups still dominate Belgian politics, but they have evolved substantially in character.
See also
- Political parties in Flanders
- List of political parties by country
- Liberalism in Belgium
- Politics of Belgium
- Politics of Flanders
- Politics of Wallonia
