Nauru elects on a national level a

head of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and l ...

(the

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

) and a

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

has 19 members (increased from 18 for the 2013 election), elected for a three-year term in multi-seat

constituencies An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

. The president is elected for a three-year term by the parliament. However, there are frequent changes of government in

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Ki ...

which occur without an election; most recently, in December 2007, that of

President of Nauru The president of Nauru is elected by Parliament from among its members, and is both the head of state and the head of government of Nauru. Nauru's unicameral Parliament has 19 members, with an electoral term of 3 years. Political parties only p ...

Marcus Stephen Marcus Ajemada Stephen (born 1 October 1969) is a Nauruan politician and former sportsperson who previously was a member of the Cabinet of Nauru, and who served as President of Nauru from December 2007 to November 2011. The son of Nauruan parli ...

came to office following a Parliamentary

vote of no confidence A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...

which overturned the preceding Administration of

Ludwig Scotty Ludwig Derangadage Scotty (born 20 June 1948) is a Nauruan politician who twice served as President of Nauru and was Speaker of Parliament five times between 2000 and 2016. He served as president from 29 May 2003 to 8 August 2003 and again from ...

, reelected just a few weeks previously with a landslide majority.

Voting system

The 19 seat members of the

Parliament of Nauru The Parliament of Nauru has 19 members, elected for a three-year term in multi-seat constituencies. The President of Nauru is elected by the members of the Parliament.

are elected through the Dowdall System, a decimalised modification of a preferential

Borda count The Borda count is a family of positional voting rules which gives each candidate, for each ballot, a number of points corresponding to the number of candidates ranked lower. In the original variant, the lowest-ranked candidate gets 0 points, the ...

. The voter must rank all candidates in order of preference (see

preferential voting {{short description, Election systems Preferential voting or preference voting (PV) may refer to different election systems or groups of election systems: * Ranked voting methods, all election methods that involve ranking candidates in order of pr ...

). Each vote is then counted using the formula 1/n, according to ranking order. For example, a candidate ranked first receives one point, the second candidate receives half a point, the third candidate receives a third of a point, and so on. Each legal vote is aggregated in order to determine a decimal score for each candidate. For example, in the

June 2010 Nauruan parliamentary election Early parliamentary elections were held in Nauru on 2010 after the previous parliamentary election in April 2010 had resulted in a deadlock between government and opposition, tied at nine seats each. This led to an extended state of emergency i ...

the then president

regained his

Anetan Constituency Anetan Constituency is one of the constituencies of Nauru and is made up of two districts: Anetan and Ewa. It covers an area of 2.2 km², and has a population of 1,180. It returns two members to the Parliament of Nauru The Parliament of ...

Voting system

Latest elections

See also

References

External links