Belgium

Despite the relative scarcity of polls, political polling becomes more and more important in Belgium. Reasons for this increase are threefold: The foremost reason is the occurence of a number of crises, which are said to have made politicians more sensitive to public opinion: a 300.000-people protest march against the malfunctioning of the justice system in the aftermath of the Dutroux phaedopilia scandal, and the occurence of a food safety crisis just before the 1999 election which had a deep impact on election results and lead to the ousting from power of the christian-democrats for the first time since 1958. In general, the traditional party-landscape has undergone profound changes, which is threatening the dominance of the traditional parties (liberals, socialist, christian-democrats), and makes voting behaviour very volatile and unpredictable. Finally, the present government (Verhofstadt I) devotes more attention to communication and image.