At the provincial council elections of the 13th of October 1985 in Belgium two of the three traditional politie al families made a general progress, namely the socialists and the christian democrats. The liberals had a serious decline in Flanders, but for the greater part this was counterbalanced by the liberal progress in Wallonia. The ecologists also made progress, mostly in the Flemish part of the country. Beside the Flemish liberals, the big losers of these elections were the regional parties, namely the Flemish nationalists and for sure the Walloon Rally who disappeared from the electoral scene.