Parliamentary elections were held in Djibouti on 22 February 2013. After their boycott of the

2008 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2008. * Electoral calendar 2008 * 2008 United Nations Security Council election Africa * 2008 Angolan legislative election * 2008 Anjouan presidential election * 2008 Republic of the Congo Senate elec ...

, opposition groups contested the elections as the Union for National Safety alliance. According to government figures, the ruling

Union for the Presidential Majority The Union for the Presidential Majority (french: Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle UMP) is the ruling political coalition in Djibouti. The coalition supports the Presidency of Ismaïl Omar Guelleh. The coalition originally formed to conte ...

won 55 of 65 seats in Parliament, while the USN won the remaining 10 seats. It was the first time since independence in 1977 that opposition parties had been represented in the legislature. However, the USN claimed the figures for Djibouti city were falsified and released alternative results which would have reduced the UMP to 34 seats and increased their total from 10 to 31.

Electoral system

In 2013 the previous winner-takes-all party block vote was abandoned. Instead the elections were held using

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some inf ...

systems in which 80% of seats (rounded to the nearest integer) in each constituency were awarded to the party receiving the most votes. The remaining seats were allocated proportionally to other parties receiving over 10% of the vote using the D'Hondt method. In cases where no other party received more than 10% of the vote, all seats in a constituency were awarded to the party receiving the most votes.

Results

By region

Aftermath

On 26 February 2013, UNS spokesman Daher Ahmed Farah said police fired tear gas on demonstrators that were protesting the election results. 300 people were arrested. "The situation is tense," Farah said. "The opposition won the elections and the victory was denied... the numbers were manipulated." The National Assembly began meeting for its new parliamentary term on 18 March 2013. Idriss Arnaoud Ali was re-elected without opposition as President of the National Assembly. 10 opposition deputies were not present.Séance Inaugurale de la 7ème Législature de l’Assemblée nationale: Arnaoud reconduit au « perchoir »
''La Nation'', 19 March 2013

References

{{Djiboutian elections Parliamentary elections in Djibouti Djibouti Parliamentary Djibouti