The politics of Mayotte takes place in a framework of a French overseas region and

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

, until 2011 an overseas collectivity. Local politics takes place in a parliamentary

representative democratic Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...

setting whereby the President of the General Council is the head of government, of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. The status of Mayotte changed in 2001 towards one very close to the status of the '' départements'' of mainland France, with the particular designation of '' collectivité départementale'', although the island is still claimed by the

Comoros The Comoros,, ' officially the Union of the Comoros,; ar, الاتحاد القمري ' is an independent country made up of three islands in southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. It ...

. This change was approved by 73% in a referendum on Mayotte. After the constitutional reform of 2003 it became a ''

collectivité d'outre-mer The French overseas collectivities (''collectivité d'outre-mer'' or ''COM'') are first-order administrative divisions of France, like the French regions, but have a semi-autonomous status. The COMs include some former French overseas colonie ...

'' while keeping the title ''collectivité départementale de Mayotte''. Mayotte became an

overseas department The overseas departments and regions of France (french: départements et régions d'outre-mer, ; ''DROM'') are departments of France that are outside metropolitan France, the European part of France. They have exactly the same status as mainlan ...

of France (''département d'outre-mer'', DOM) on 31 March 2011 following the result of the March

2009 Mahoran status referendum A referendum on becoming an overseas department of France was held in Mayotte on 29 March 2009. Mayotte had been a departmental collectivity of France since 2001. In contrast to the four other similar regions (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martin ...

, which was overwhelmingly approved by around 95% of voters.

Executive branch

The head of state is the President of France as represented by prefect

Thierry Suquet Thierry is a French male given name, derived from the Germanic "Theodoric". It is the cognate of German " Dietrich" and " Dieter", English Terry, Derek and Derrick, and of various forms in other European languages. It is also a surname. People w ...

. The head of government is President of the General Council Soibahadine Ibrahim Ramadani.

Legislative branch

The

General Council General council may refer to: In education: * General Council (Scottish university), an advisory body to each of the ancient universities of Scotland * General Council of the University of St Andrews, the corporate body of all graduates and senio ...

(Conseil Général) has 19 members, elected for a three-year term in single seat constituencies. The island is represented by one deputy in the National Assembly of France.

Political parties and elections

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