Mayors in the Spotlight: Local Electoral Presidentialisation in Flanders (Belgium)

The theory for this paper is based on “The Presidentialization of Politics” of Poguntke & Webb (2005). The authors distinguish in their threefold theory an electoral, executive and party face of presidentialization on the national political level. They assume that during the last decades political leaders gained influence on all three faces. Presidentialization on the local level is a far more uncultivated area. This paper focuses in particular on the electoral presidentialization of the Flemish mayor. At first it’s clear that the mayor is an important key player in the electoral process and that the number of preferential votes is determinant in the allocation of the mayoralty. Secondly, we see that the person who becomes the mayor got on average more media coverage than other frontrunners. Finally, a multivariate analysis shows that the share of preferential votes is the best factor to explain the amount of votes for the mayor.