see Belgium
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October 9,2004.
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© 1999, 2004 James Chastain.
A law extending the franchise was one means that the Belgian
government used to diffuse public anxiety in a year of extreme
industrial and agricultural hardship to increase public
confidence in the existing political system. Electoral reform
had been discussed since the revolution of 1830. At that time,
Louis de Potter, a popular member of the provisional government
had urged universal male suffrage in the elections for the
national congress. Other voices prevailed, and the new state
retained the very restricted suffrage of the former Kingdom of
the Netherlands which restricted the electorate to 45,000 out of
a population of three million by poll tax and property
qualifications. This represented 1.5% of the population. Under
the constitution of 1831 the suffrage was only modestly enlarged.
By 1840 democratic elements in the country led by Le
Patriote Belge again advanced the idea of universal male suffrage
as a means to achieve social justice. Such an appeal met with
small response from the politically indifferent mass of peasants.
In 1844 the call for electoral reform was echoed by
the newweekly Débat Social which on November 3, clearly called for
universal manhood suffrage. The Patriot Belge and the
Débat Social spoke for a small group of extremists, who were
politically conscious, thus they drew no popular response. Yet
the call did indicate that the idea of electoral reform was
current.
Organization of the Liberal Party on June 14, 1846 was the
first manifestation of the political reform movement. Meeting in
the salle gothique of the Hôumflex;tel de Ville in Brussels it
adopted an electoral program. One of the major planks in the platform
was a call for electoral reforms as a rather modest extension of
the franchise to the limit envisioned by the constitution, i.e.,
the granting of the vote to all who paid twenty florins in direct
taxes, doubling the electorate to around 90,000. Leader of the
new party was the revolutionary hero, Charles Rogier, who formed
a government on August 12, 1847. About the same time, there was
founded the "Association D‚mocratique" whose proclaimed objective
was the democratization of society through means of electoral
reform. The catalyst, however, which gave the impetus for the
sweeping electoral reform was the Parisian revolution of February
1848.
News the fall of the July Monarchy caused runs on Brussel's
banks and government bonds dropped by fifty percent. The
Association Démocratique began circulating pamphlets calling for
universal manhood suffrage. Rogier refused to undertake any
extraordinary measures, but on February 28 he proposed lowering
poll tax qualifications to vote for members of parliament to 20
florins. On March 29 a second law extended this same provision
to local elections although it retained a provision requiring
three years' residency.
It is difficult to assess the direct effect of these
measures upon the volatile situation in Belgium, particularly in
Flanders where suffering and poverty were widespread.
Simultaneously, natural causes and the measures voted by the
chambers combined to improve the situation. The fact is,
however, that the electorate responded positively to the law and
in the ensuing election for deputies in June 1848 the Liberal
party got eighty-five seats and the Catholic party twenty-three.
In the opinion of the Austrian ambassador, the electoral law of
1848 diffused a difficult situation and allowed Belgium to remain
at peace with her institution of 1830. The French ambassador
echoed the same sentiment, stating that Belgium enjoyed all the
benefits of being a republic.
John W. Rooney, Jr.
Bibliography