With the results of Sunday’s elections all in politicians in municipalities across the country are negotiating to forma new coalition. In fewer than 1 in 5 municipalities in Flanders the politician that has so-called “right of initiative”, the right to have first shot a forming a new coalition is a woman.
Just 17% of those leading the talks on the formation of new municipal coalitions are women
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Those with “right of initiative” have two weeks to try a form a new majority on the council. In 48 of the 276 municipalities (17.4%) where the “right of initiative” rules apply it is a woman that is in charge of leading the negotiations.
Of the 13 medium-sized town in Flanders, only in Kortrijk (West Flanders) is a woman, Ruth Vandenberghe (photo, above), in charge of leading the municipal coalition talks. Ms Vandenberghe told VRT News that she doesn’t know why there are so few women in her position.
Nadia Sminate (Nationalist) has “right of initiative" in Londerzeel (Flemish Brabant), she told VRT News that she hadn’t expected that the figures would be so low, particular as the number of women in parliament is almost as high as the number of men.
“one explanation could be that local politics is very demanding. As a single mum with 2 children, I know that my personal life suffers a lot. But it is a vocation.”
No “right of initiative” in Brussels
The right of initiative rules don’t apply in the Brussels-Capital Regional, the 6 Flemish Brabant municipalities near to Brussels with special linguistic dispensations for Francophones and the Limburg municipality of Voeren. In Lo-Reninge (West Flanders) and Herstappe (Limburg) no municipal elections were held as there was just one list.
More or less
The figure of 17% is lower than the percentage of female mayor in our region. After the previous municipal elections in 2018 just under 19% of Flemish Mayors were women.