2007 Belgian federal election

2007 Belgian federal election

← 2003 10 June 2007 (2007-06-10) 2010 →
Turnout	91.08%
Chamber of Representatives
All 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives 76 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/– CD&V–N-VA Yves Leterme 18.51 30 +8 MR Didier Reynders 12.52 23 −1 Vlaams Belang Frank Vanhecke 11.99 17 −1 Open Vld Guy Verhofstadt 11.83 18 −7 PS Elio Di Rupo 10.86 20 −5 sp.a–spirit Johan Vande Lanotte 10.26 14 −9 cdH Joëlle Milquet 6.06 10 +2 Ecolo Jean-Michel Javaux Isabelle Durant 5.10 8 +4 Lijst Dedecker Jean-Marie Dedecker 4.03 5 New Groen Vera Dua 3.98 4 +4 National Democracy Daniel Féret 1.97 1 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Senate
40 of the 71 seats in the Senate
Party Vote % Seats +/– CD&V–N-VA 19.42 9 +3 Open Vld 12.40 5 −2 MR 12.31 6 +1 Vlaams Belang 11.89 5 0 PS 10.24 4 −2 sp.a–spirit 10.04 4 −3 cdH 5.90 2 0 Ecolo 5.82 2 +1 Groen 3.64 1 +1 Lijst Dedecker 3.38 5 New National Democracy 2.27 1 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Chamber of Representatives results by electoral district Senate direct election results by electoral district Federal Government before Federal Government after Verhofstadt II Government Verhofstadt III Government (interim)

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Timeline 2007 elections 2007–2008 government formation Verhofstadt III (interim) Leterme I Van Rompuy I Leterme II 2010 elections 2010–2011 government formation Di Rupo I Sixth state reform
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Federal elections were held in Belgium on 10 June 2007. Voters went to the polls in order to elect new members for the Chamber of Representatives and Senate.

Eligible voters were Belgian citizens 18 years and older. There was a legal electoral threshold of 5% for political parties to meet to receive representation, but in several election districts the real electoral threshold is higher than the legal, due to the small number of seats to be elected in the particular district. The 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected from 11 electoral districts. The 40 Senate members were elected from the Dutch (25) and Francophone (15) electoral colleges.

Of the Flemish parties, the alliance of Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) and the New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) received an increased share of the vote from the previous election, held in 2003. The CD&V/N-VA list was headed by Yves Leterme, and became the largest political formation in Belgium, thus leading the coalition talks for a new government.^[1] Vlaams Belang received more votes than in the previous election, but lost one seat. Groen! was able to return to parliament and newcomers Lijst Dedecker surprised most by immediately grabbing six seats, including one in the Senate. Prime minister Guy Verhofstadt's "purple coalition," consisting of his Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open Vld) alliance list and Socialist Party – Different (sp.a/spirit), was punished in the election, with the sp.a/spirit alliance losing somewhat more than Verhofstadt's Open Vld alliance. The day after the election, Verhofstadt handed in the resignation of his government to King Albert II.^[2][3] SP.A leader Johan Vande Lanotte resigned from his leadership position as well that day.^[4]

The Francophone situation did not mirror its Flemish counterpart. While Verhofstadt's Open Vld struggled, its Francophone sister party Mouvement Réformateur managed to defeat the long-dominant Parti Socialiste (PS), although the PS remained strong in Hainaut and Liège. The Humanist Democratic Centre brought in a positive result as well, but the biggest gains were for the environmentalist party Ecolo.

The overall outcome of the elections was that the liberal fraction (MR, Open Vld) became the largest group in parliament with, followed by the Christian Democrats (CD&V, cdH) and N-VA with 40 seats. The electoral alliance between the Flemish CD&V and N-VA parties became the biggest single parliamentary grouping (25 seats for CD&V and 5 for N-VA).