What did the arrondissemental constituencies look like?

Answer

The former electoral districts, which in most cases were amalgamations of judicial districts, were enlarged in 2002 by the purple-green government so that they now coincide with the provinces. An exception is the old province of Brabant, where the former arrangement with three district electoral districts, namely Leuven, Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde and Walloon Brabant, still applies.

In 2003, the Constitutional Court ruled that this constitutes an unacceptable inequality: there are provincial electoral districts everywhere in Belgium, while this is not the case in Flemish Brabant and Brussels.

This can be solved roughly in two ways. On the one hand, split off Halle-Vilvoorde from Brussels and add it to Leuven so that it forms a provincial constituency of Flemish Brabant. There the whole discussion about the division of BHV revolved around, but no agreement could be reached on this. On the other hand, the situation in the old province of Brabant can be left as it is (i.e. not split up BHV) and the situation in the rest of Belgium can be adapted to the arrangement in Brabant, ie reintroduce district electoral districts everywhere else in Belgium. This solution would perfectly meet the objections of the Constitutional Court, but it is not politically feasible because the Flemish would then hand over an important means of pressure to split BHV (and the split of BHV in turn is a means to prevent the Frenchification in the wide border around Brussels).

These were the former arrondissemental constituencies (used up to and including the 1999 election):

Antwerp

Mechelen-Turnhout

Tournai–Ath–Mouscron

Charleroi – Thuin

Mons–Soignies

Hasselt – Tongeren – Maaseik

Shutter

Huy – Waremme

Verviers

Arlon – Marche en Famenne – Bastogne

Namur–Dinant–Phillipville

Aalst – Oudenaarde

Ghent – ​​Eeklo

Sint-Niklaas – Dendermonde

Louvain

Levels

Bruges

Kortrijk – Roeselare – Tielt

Veurne – Diksmuide – Ypres – Ostend

Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde

The parties submitted a list of candidates for each district constituency, but the actual distribution of seats took place in three phases. In a first phase, seats were distributed among the parties at the level of the district constituency (based on electoral quotients: the votes of each party were divided by an electoral quota). Not all seats could yet be distributed in this way, so in a second phase all the votes of a party were added together at the level of the province (in concrete terms, for example, for the province of Antwerp, the votes of a party in the district of Antwerp were added to those of the district of Mechelen-Turnhout). For example, the remaining seats were then divided between the parties on the basis of the D’Hondt divisor series. Now all seats were divided among the parties, but in a third phase these still had to be allocated back to the district electoral districts within the party.

In addition to the political objections mentioned above, there are still disadvantages associated with this old regulation. It is very complex and difficult for most people to understand. In addition, it sometimes produces illogical results (‘buck jumps’). That’s how Green! in 2007 no seat in the constituency of Leuven with 8.22 % of the votes, while LDD only got 5.84 % of the votes but does get a seat there.