Elections 2024: Vlaams Belang spends most on social media during final campaign month

During the last month of the election campaign, the far-right party Vlaams Belang spent the most money on social media advertising. Flemish democrats CD&V were second. Of the francophone parties, Les Engagés is the top spender.

Belgian political parties traditionally spend a lot of money on social media campaigning. A report by citizen’s collective AdLens showed in January that they spent a total of 6 million euros on advertising on Facebook and Instagram in 2023, a record high.

Vlaams Belang and Flemish nationalist party N-VA topped the list, with their combined spending accounting for half of the total sum. During the last month of the electoral campaign, from 5 May to 3 June, the rankings changed slightly, though Vlaams Belang remains the biggest spender. 

Looking at social media pages on which at least 4,000 euros were spent, Vlaams Belang spent 449,757 euros on Meta. Of this, 257,795 euros went to the pages of leader Tom Van Grieken and 156,885 to the pages of the party itself.

CD&V was also very active, spending a total of 371,027 euros, of which 246,757 euros were for the party's own pages. Groen follows in third place, with 251,087 euros, followed by far-left PVDA (230,953 euros), socialists Vooruit (203,736 euros), N-VA (151,860 euros) and liberal Open VLD (151,752 euros).

Among French-speaking parties, Christian democrats Les Engagés topped the list, having spent 115,352 euros. The socialists PS and liberals MR come in second and third with 87,059 and 81,473 euros respectively. DéFI, Ecolo and PTB close the list. 

In total, Flemish parties spent 2.2 million euros during the last month of the election campaign. That is a big difference from Wallonia and Brussels, where 543,000 euros and 286,000 were spent respectively.

^{Vlaams Belang leader Tom Van Grieken © BELGA PHOTO DIRK WAEM}