Belgium has seen a record number of electoral abstentions, with over 1.05 million voters (12.5% of the electorate) shunning the polls – a rise of 100,000 since 2019.
Non-voters now represent, in a sense, the country's second-largest party, only slightly trailing behind the right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) which earned the support of 1.165 million voters.
Although voting is compulsory in Belgium, abstaining is subject only to theoretical fines; prosecutions are extremely rare as legal authorities have other priorities.
Contrary to the trend of abstention, the number of spoiled ballots decreased slightly on Sunday compared to five years ago with 415,912 blank votes, a dip from 438,098 in 2019.
This decline can be considered in relation to the performance of the Blanco party, which aims to attract voters dissatisfied with mainstream choices, and which received around 75,000 votes nationwide on Sunday.
