Belgium's 2024 local elections are around the corner. Brussels residents will vote to elect their local council on Sunday 13 October, and indirectly, their new mayor (bourgmestre in French or burgemeester in Dutch).
Knowing how the local election list system works is key to understanding who is running. Find all you need to know about lists here. Our practical guide will tell you everything you need to know before the big day.
Some numbers below are missing. This is because there are a total of 13 lists in Brussels, but not every list appears in every commune.
Current mayor: Claire Vandevivere (Les Engagés)
Current coalition: LBJette, Ecolo-Groen, MR
Number of seats on the council: 37
Population: 54,107 (Statbel)
Average income: €16,267 (Statbel)
Average cost of housing: The average price for a flat is €2,780/m2, while the average cost for a house is €2,632/m2 (Immoweb)
1. PS-Vooruit
Lead candidate: Xavier van Cauter (PS)
Number of candidates on the list: 37
Mobility: consult residents in projects, make parking coherent and efficient, 'democratically-priced' off-street car parks, work with STIB to improve transport, extend cycle paths and encourage car-sharing.
Cleanliness: set up a local recycling park, encourage use of glass recycling and underground bins, improve oil and hazardous waste collection, better collections of bulky items, prevent, monitor and fine illegal dumping, set up a communal complaints management programme.
Housing: regional subsidies for more (social) housing, fine landlords of unoccupied accommodation, create a housing centre informing citizens of rights and opportunities.
Security: appoint neighbourhood concierge, increase the number of police officers, work with locals to identify unsafe areas, promote trust between officers and locals, fight violence against women, develop private online police reception services.
Full list programme here.
2. DéFI
Lead candidate: Nicolas de Brauwer
Number of candidates on the list: 19
Cleanliness: improve existing services and bring them closer to residents, create a cleanliness mediator to raise awareness of cleanliness, make cleaning and maintenance of regional roads a competence of the local authority.
Mobility: compensate local residents for on-street parking costs, more safe bike storage, renovate infrastructure for pedestrians and people with reduced mobility.
Housing: penalise owners of unoccupied or abandoned housing, combat loneliness by creating housing with communal areas for isolated people.
Citizen participation: encourage citizen participation, strengthen the connection between representatives and residents.
Full list programme here.
3. LBJette
Lead candidate: Claire Vandevivere (Les Engagés)
Number of candidates on the list: 37
Mobility: support alternatives to cars by promoting public transport use, purchase of bikes, and carpooling, new tramline directly to Brussels-North, involve local residents, increase assistance for the mobility of senior citizens.
Cleanliness: install more cameras to monitor illegal dumping and impose sanctions.
Security: increase patrols on streets, restore trust between locals and authorities, address issues related to drug trafficking and domestic violence.
Social welfare: renovate and increase social housing units, increase assistance for single-parent families.
Full list programme here.
4. Ecolo-Groen
Lead candidate: Thomas Naessens (Ecolo)
Number of candidates on the list: 37
Cleanliness: create recycling centre, support repairing initiatives such as bike workshops and 'repair cafés', increase penalties for illegal dumping, increase local involvement with a volunteer network.
Mobility: focus on soft road users, create cycle path on Avenue Sacré-Coeur, take action against anti-social drivers, increase access and speed to trams and buses, involve residents in major traffic measures.
Housing: combat vacant housing by contacting the owners after six months of vacancy, increase affordable housing, combat social exclusion through housing and care associations.
Security: address crime, vandalism and drug trafficking-related issues by strengthening local police and social professionals, pressure the Federal Government to review and improve distribution of police forces.
Full list programme here.
6. MR-VLD
Lead candidate: Sven Gatz (Open VLD)
Number of candidates on the list: 37
Cleanliness: more public bins, surveillance cameras and increased intervention by the police and sanitation department, fine illegal dumping, more awareness campaigns in schools.
Security: increase surveillance, make police interventions quicker, increase access to e-police services.
Mobility: make better use of existing parking spaces, friendlier parking policy for visitors, increase bicycle parking areas, different parking tariffs depending on function in the neighbourhood, more electric charging stations.
Commerce: increase support for start-ups, create quality labels for local commerce, councillor for commerce as a central manager.
Full list programme here.
9. N-VA
Lead candidate: Sara Rampelberg
Number of candidates on the list: 7
Cleanliness: encourage citizen involvement in cleaning actions, punish nuisances and illegal dumping with fines, park rangers to protect green spaces.
Social welfare: combat loneliness through low-threshold activities, more surveillance over undeclared work and fraud, integrate newcomers through job stimulation and language acquisition, encourage use of European Disability cards to promote access to culture and sports, ensure Dutch is the standard language in Dutch-speaking nurseries and schools.
Security: zero tolerance for aggression against emergency workers and civil servants, set up neighbourhood information networks, make contacting the police easier by allowing different forms of communication, zero tolerance for aggressive forms of begging, expand the surveillance camera network.
Mobility: better cooperation with public transport companies, optimise Brussels' ring road, more parking spaces and EV charging stations, make roads safer with speed limits at residential areas, clearly marked bike paths and better pavements.
Full list programme here.
10. Vlaams Belang
Lead candidate: Luc Beullens
Number of candidates on the list: 11
Security: zero tolerance for public drug use, increase police presence, monitor and close down dubious commercial activities, involve locals in safety issues via neighbourhood information networks.
Migration: ban philosophical and religious symbols in public services, create a separate police brigade to track down "illegal" immigrants, set up an "illegality hotline" for police districts, stop allowing new migrants to settle.
Cleanliness: reintroduce white bin bag collection twice a week, use surveillance cameras to find and punish those who dump waste illegally, build underground waste containers, improve coordination of municipal waste services.
Mobility: evaluate regional mobility plans and abolish them if needed, free resident cards for families and reduced parking fees, improved communication with locals during major construction projects, quality and safe public transport.
Full list programme here.
11. Team Fouad Ahidar+1090
Lead candidate: Fouad Ahidar (Team Fouad Ahidar)
Number of candidates on the list: 23
The list does not specify priorities per commune; the following are for Brussels as a whole.
Cleanliness: install underground containers to combat littering, punish litterers severely, install more public toilets, new residents should receive a welcome pack with information on waste management, bulky waste and hygiene in Brussels.
Security and well-being: instead of seeing the police as an entity primarily focused on fines and financial penalties, they should emphasise raising awareness and creating opportunities, collaborate with local stakeholders such as youth workers and street workers, diversify local police force.
Housing: impose price cap on renting and buying housing with clear and identifiable criteria, prioritise access to social housing for single parents and people with disabilities.
Education: support bilingual schools, optimise existing resources, invest in teacher training, smaller classrooms, free education to all primary and secondary students, combat bullying in schools.
Full list programme here.
13. PTB-PVDA
Lead candidate: Jan Busselen (PVDA)
Number of candidates on the list: 21
Housing: set rent caps dependent on the quality of accommodation, affordable insulation, achieve 20% social housing in Brussels, cap rent indexation at 2% in municipal and social housing, increase tax contribution of large companies and landlords with multiple homes.
Education: free education and back-to-school kits for local primary and secondary school students, collective school equipment, free school meals, smaller classrooms, more support for students with learning difficulties, invest in bilingualism, ensure school placements close to home.
Cleanliness: underground waste containers, monthly mobile collection of large household waste, increase cleaning staff on evenings and weekends, build drinking water fountains, deposit system for cans and plastic bottles.
Security: recruit neighbourhood officers, police stations accessible at night, reject merging police zones, stewards in major public transport stops, address drug trafficking and public drug use through collaborations between schools, the police, and youth centres, improve support services for victims, ban ethnic profiling by communicating why a person was stopped by the authorities.
Full list programme here.
