Samenvatting

Parties supposedly take great care to assure an equilibrium in the socio-geographical composition of their lists of candidates. In this contribution it is investigated whether the parties which participated to the 2004 regional elections in Brussels indeed presented lists in which the criterion of equilibrated geographical distribution was taken into account. We compared the presence of candidates living in disfavoured neighbourhoods, middle class neighbourhoods and rich neighbourhoods for the different lists which participated in the elections. It is shown that elected politicians overwhelming tend to live in the richer areas of the Brussels Capital Region. This is not due to a funnel effect in which predominantly the candidates living in richer neighbourhoods were able to get elected. Parties had, indeed, in general distinct socio-geographical profiles of their candidates and these merely got reflected in the overall results of those getting elected.