Election
Regional elections were held in Belgium, to choose representatives in the regional councils of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking Community on 13 June 1999. The regional elections were held on the same day as the European elections and the federal elections.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “1999 Belgian regional elections”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Regional elections were held in Belgium, to choose representatives in the regional councils of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking Community on 13 June 1999. The regional elections were held on the same day as the European elections and the federal elections.
The incumbent Flemish Government consisted of the Christian People's Party (CVP) and the Socialist Party (SP), led by Minister-President Luc Van den Brande (CVP). Following this election, a government was formed without the Christian democrats. New Minister-President Patrick Dewael (Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD)) led a "purple-green-yellow" coalition of his own liberal VLD, the Socialist Party, Agalev and the nationalist People's Union (VU-ID). This change mirrored what happened on the federal level, where the Jean-Luc Dehaene Government was succeeded by the Guy Verhofstadt Government.
Also notable was the continuation of the rise of Vlaams Blok, especially in the constituency of Antwerp where Filip Dewinter was candidate and where the party received 25% of the votes, or as much as 30% in the city of Antwerp itself.
These were only the second direct election for the Flemish Parliament, but the last to use arrondissement-based constituencies. They were merged into provincial constituencies starting from the 2004 election.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1999 Belgian regional elections”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.