In recent years the Belgian electoral law suffered from five major changes, of which the widening-up of the electoral districts to the level of the provinces, was criticised for disrupting the tradition of a strong local anchorage of candidates and MPs. This would estrange the electorate from its representatives, as it was widely believed that the electoral system would be beneficial to urban and well-known candidates only. Our analysis of the candidates of the Flemish political parties, for the elections of 18 May 2003 does not assert this thesis. Candidates from urban areas are not over-represented on the electoral lists. Moreover, more than half of the candidates concurrently occupy political positions on local level, and the number of preference votes is for two thirds of the candidates concentrated in one or a few constituencies.Analysis of the elected representatives shows a rather different picture in terms of local anchorage. Our data suggest an over-representation of urban politicians. Nevertheless, still a lot of MPs can be labelled as «locally embedded». Based on our findings, we deny the critique that locally embedded candidates would be outnumbered on the electoral lists and in parliament through a widening-up of the electoral districts.