Chamber of Representatives
The Chamber of Representatives holds its plenary meetings in the Palace of the Nation, Brussels. Eligibility requirements for the Chamber are a minimum age of 21, citizenship, and residency in Belgium.
The number of seats in the Chamber is constitutionally set at 150 elected from 11 electoral districts. The districts are divided along linguistic lines: 5 Flemish (79 seats), 5 Walloon (49 seats), and the bilingual district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (22 seats). The districts are the provinces, except for the districts of Leuven (part of Flemish Brabant) and Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. Each district is given a number of seats proportional to its population (not number of voters) ranging from 4 for Luxembourg to 24 for Antwerp. All districts have an electoral threshold of 5%, except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde and Leuven; all districts are monolingual, except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde which encompasses both the 19 bilingual municipalities from the Brussels-Capital region and some 35 Dutch-speaking municipalities in Flemish Brabant, incl. 7 with language facilities for French-speakers.
The current composition was elected at the federal elections of 2010.
| Party | Leader(s) | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | +/– | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Flemish Alliance (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie) | Bart De Wever | 1,135,617 | 17.40 | * | 27 | * | |||
| Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste) | Elio Di Rupo | 894,543 | 13.70 | 2.85 | 26 | 6 | |||
| Christian Democratic and Flemish (Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams) | Wouter Beke | 707,986 | 10.85 | * | 17 | * | |||
| Reformist Movement (Mouvement Réformateur) | Charles Michel | 605,617 | 9.28 | 3.23 | 18 | 5 | |||
| Socialist Party – Differently (Socialistische Partij – Anders) | Bruno Tobback | 602,867 | 9.24 | 1.02 | 13 | 1 | |||
| Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten) | Alexander De Croo | 563,873 | 8.64 | 3.19 | 13 | 5 | |||
| Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang) | Bruno Valkeniers | 506,697 | 7.76 | 4.23 | 12 | 5 | |||
| Humanist Democratic Centre (Centre Démocrate Humaniste) | Benoît Lutgen | 360,441 | 5.52 | 0.53 | 9 | 1 | |||
| Ecolo | Jean-Michel Javaux & Sarah Turine |
313,047 | 4.80 | 0.30 | 8 | 0 | |||
| Green! (Groen!) | Wouter Van Besien | 285,989 | 4.38 | 0.40 | 5 | 1 | |||
| List Dedecker (Lijst Dedecker) | Jean-Marie Dedecker | 150,577 | 2.31 | 1.72 | 1 | 4 | |||
| Popular Party (Parti Populaire) | Mischaël Modrikamen | 84,005 | 1.29 | — | 1 | — | |||
| Others | 316,108 | 4.84 | — | — | — | ||||
| Valid votes | 6,527,367 | 94.19 | |||||||
| Blank and invalid votes | 402,488 | 5.81 | |||||||
| Totals | 6,929,855 | 100.00 | — | 150 | — | ||||
| Electorate and voter turnout | 7,767,552 | 89.22 | |||||||
| Source: Federal Portal − Chamber Elections 2010. Notes: * = Christian Democratic and Flemish and the New Flemish Alliance contested the 2007 elections together, receiving 18.51% of the votes and 30 seats. |
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Famous quotes containing the words chamber of and/or chamber:
“Hey, you dress up our town very nicely. You don’t look out the Chamber of Commerce is going to list you in their publicity with the local attractions.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar)
“The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls,—the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot- box once a year, but on what kind of a man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)