Register!

Non-Belgians can vote for local representatives (and, in Antwerp city only, district reps), provided they:

• are 18 years old or over on 14 October, 2012

• register on the voter list before 1 August

• are not excluded from voting by a judicial ruling For people from outside the European Union, there is an extra requirement:

• to have resided continually in Belgium for five years

Non Belgian nationals are not allowed to vote in provincial or national elections, whether they are EU citizens or not.

You can register to vote at your local town hall, where you can also find a leaflet in simple Dutch. The same information is on the Vlaanderenkiest.be website. The Brussels Region has its own publication, with similar information.

Once registered, you will be treated as all voters are. Beware, though, voting is compulsory in Belgium. Once you are registered, you have to vote. This means that you have to show up on voting day at the polling station, with the notice you will receive some weeks in advance and an official ID. Failure to show up to any local election may result in a fine.

The act of participating

“Voting is an act of participation, of good citizenship”, says Flemish minister of the interior and integration Geert Bourgeois. “I suppose that people who feel involved with their communities will vote. People who do not join organisations, schools or neighbourhood comities will probably be less interested.”

In the 2006 local elections, 110,973 EU citizens in Belgium (about 21% of the total) were registered to vote. Because EU citizens come and go, the numbers of those registered can change substantially from election to election. So far this year, only 14% of EU citizens in Belgium are registered to vote in local elections. The numbers for non-EU citizens are lower still: only about 4% were registered by the end of May, compared to 15% in 2006.

But according to the federal Interior service, these numbers are not that bad: A study by the European Commission shows that average registration rates among EU citizens for local elections in other countries stands at 10%. Belgium does better than that. Bourgeois notes that the numbers are lower, though, than what some expected. (His party N-VA voted against the foreigner’s right to vote, a very divisive issue, in 2004.)

“Compulsory voting scares off some people,” admits Inge Jooris, spokesperson for the Groen party. “They think that they will have to vote at every election, even when they leave the country. They do not realise that it is just as easy to remove your name from the voting register as it is to register.”

Groen has produced a YouTube clip to encourage non-Belgians to vote. The clip is remarkable in that it does not ask people to vote for Groen (although that may ultimately be its goal). “Democracy and participation have always been important to us as a party,” Jooris explains. “People who live here pay taxes. They have the right to decide what happens with that money. Also, voting makes people more involved in the communities in which they live.”

EU citizens can even stand as a candidate with one of the parties. To find out more, contact the party of your choice.

So that leaves just one question: who to vote for? Well, that is entirely up to you. One local tradition we can advise you on, however: Most Flemish prefer to remain discreet about their political preference. On voting day, if you ask who they voted for, the enigmatic answer will invariably be “voor de goeie” ( for the right ones). So there’s our advice: Vote for the right ones. 

www.vlaanderenkiest.be 

www.brusselverkiezingen2012.irisnet.be