Chambre des Représentants de Belgique

Geschiedenis

The Chamber of Representatives is one of the two chambers in the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Senate. It is considered to be the "lower house" of the Federal Parliament.Members and electionsArticle 62 of the Belgian Constitution fixes the number of seats in the Chamber of Representatives at 150. There are 11 electoral districts, which correspond with the ten Provinces (5 Dutch and 5 French-speaking) and the Brussels-Capital Region. (Prior to the sixth Belgian state reform, the province of Flemish Brabant was divided into two electoral districts: one for Leuven and the other, named Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV), which encompassed both the 19 bilingual municipalities from the Brussels-Capital Region and the 35 Dutch-speaking municipalities of Halle-Vilvoorde in Flemish Brabant, including 7 municipalities with linguistic facilities for French-speaking inhabitants).The seats are divided among the political parties using the D'Hondt method of proportional representation, which slightly favours large parties and coalitions. There is an electoral threshold of 5%.