Abstract: Although many international studies might credit Scandinavian countries for their good practices in promoting gender equality in politics, Belgium undoubtedly features as a close second. Indeed, while the country initially took a slow start in granting women political rights (the adoption of universal suffrage for women, for instance, came rather late [Meier, 2012a]), it succeeded in building an international reputation for itself from the mid-1990s onward (Meier, 2012a). This reputation is closely intertwined with Belgium’s extensive experiences with gender quotas. In 1994, Belgium became the first country in the world to adopt legislative gender quotas for all parties competing in elections and on all levels of government. In the following decades, new quotas acts were progressively adopted and implemented. The 2002 gender quotas acts, which required all Belgian parties to place an equal number of men and women on candidate lists and among the top two positions of each list, were unparalleled both in terms of ambition and effectiveness. More recently, the Brussels and Walloon regional governments adopted the zipper principle demanding the alternation of men and women across the entire candidate lists in local and regional elections.