Hasselt –
Reports from our Limburg elected officials, analyzes and reports about the concerns of Limburgers, the examination of the party leaders, the major Limburg poll, political debates, The Voting Test… From Monday, Het Belang van Limburg will be your guide to the elections of June 9, 2024.
On Sunday, June 9, we will all go to the polls for the European, federal and Flemish elections. Over the next five weeks, Het Belang van Limburg will pull out all the stops to inform you and help you make the right choice. What can you expect from HBVL?
1. The Voice Test
In collaboration with VRT NWS, we launched De Votetest in mid-April. With this online compass you can discover which party best suits you.
2. The reports
We kick off the campaign on Monday with the reports from the 36 Limburgers who have served in the European, federal or Flemish Parliament over the past five years. Who did it right? Who underperformed? Which parties provided the best parliamentarians? And who is the worst? While we have been extremely generous, some elected officials will choke on their coffee. Others will share their good performance lavishly on social media.
In this first week we will also present the report from the federal De Croo government and the Flemish Jambon government. How have they done in the past five years? What have they achieved? And where have they failed?
3. Concerns of the Limburgers
Week two (from May 13) the political editorial staff focuses on the concerns of Limburgers. What keeps you awake? Where are things going wrong in Belgium and/or Flanders? What needs to be improved? We criss-cross Limburg to listen to your concerns. We include these in large analysis pieces with background and explanation about five major themes: migration, purchasing power, foreign security, healthcare and political trust/distrust.
4. Exam of Importance
What is going on among the youth? In week three (from May 21), the 16 Limburg party leaders for Europe, Chamber and Flemish Parliament will take an exam. The questions were drawn up by young people. Just as professionals do in higher education, political journalists and university students will grill politicians based on two questions. Afterwards, the party leaders will receive a score from our youth audience. A professional film crew will capture all 16 exams. We will present this to you on hbvl.be, accompanied by an extensive report.
5. The Limburg poll
Just like in May 2022 and May 2023, we will also be releasing the new, major political poll by Het Belang van Limburg this month. Once again, research agency Ipsos will ask more than 600 Limburgers aged 18 and older about their political preferences. Two weeks before the polls, the results in Limburg – and beyond, not least at the party headquarters – will be viewed with more than usual interest.
6. Political debates
In week five – the week before the polls – we will release the reports (in images and text) of the major political debates to you. We start with the big chairman’s debate where Tom van Grieken (Vlaams Belang), Bart De Wever (N-VA), Sammy Mahdi (CD&V), Melissa Depraetere (Vooruit), Tom Ongena (Open VLD), Jeremy Vaneeckhout (Groen) and Raoul Hedebouw (PVDA) will cross swords. This chairman’s debate will be continued in three breakfast debates, with the Limburg party leaders in Europe (Hilde Vautmans and Wouter Beke), the seven parliamentary party leaders in the Limburg constituency and the seven Flemish party leaders in Limburg, respectively. Finally, in the weekend newspaper we present you with the 9 questions for June 9. Is Vlaams Belang causing a tsunami of voters? Will N-VA get 20 percent? Will Groen cross the electoral threshold? Who will be the largest in Wallonia? You will get the answers to those questions when all the results of the ballot box have been counted.
7. Social media
Our editorial team also makes videos about the elections tailored to young people. What does each party stand for? What is a cordon sanitary? Do I have to vote, and how do I do that? We will look for the answers to a lot of questions. You can discover it on Tiktok and Instagram, but also in the HBVL app.
8. Political newsletter
Anyone who wants to stay fully informed of political goings-on can subscribe to our political newsletter. In addition to current news, it will also contain analyzes and opinion pieces.
Everything about the June 9 elections will be bundled on our elections page.