Parliamentary elections were held in

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

in 2018 alongside ; the first round was held on 6 October and the second round on 27 October. Despite losing 15 seats, the ruling

Gabonese Democratic Party The Gabonese Democratic Party (, PDG) is a political party in Gabon. It was the dominant political party in Gabonese politics from 1961 until 2023, when it was deposed in a coup d'état against President Ali Bongo. It was also the sole legal ...

maintained its two-thirds majority in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

, winning 98 of the 143 seats.

Background

Parliamentary elections are normally held every five years, and the previous elections were held in December 2011. The elections were set for 27 December 2016, before being postponed until 29 July 2017 and then April 2018 to enable political dialogue and allegedly due to a shortage of funds. However, the elections were not held on 28 April 2018, without the government announcing a report or asking the Constitutional Council for another delay. This meant that the term of the National Assembly had legally expired. As a result, the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

dissolved the National Assembly and temporarily reassigned its powers to the Senate (which was still legally constituted), and dismissed Prime Minister Emmanuel Issoze-Ngondet.

Electoral system

The 143 members of the National Assembly are elected from single-member constituencies using the

two-round system The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...

Results

The first round had a 58.63% turnout, but only 28.5% in the Estuaire province, where nearly half of the population lives.Législatives au Gabon : majorité absolue pour le pouvoir dès le premier tour
Jeune Afrique, 13 October 2018 The ruling

(PDG) won 74 seats and two minor parties in alliance with PDG won a seat each (RV and UDIS). The Democrats (LD) won three seats, while the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(PSD) and the

Union for the New Republic The Union for the New Republic (, , UNR) was a Gaullist political party in France, formed in support of Charles de Gaulle in the 1958 elections. History The UNR won 189 of 466 seats in the November 1958 elections. In 1962, the UNR grouped ...

(UPNR) won one each. Two Independents also won seats. The first round was postponed in the Elelem constituency in Woleu department in

Woleu-Ntem Province Woleu-Ntem is the northernmost of Gabon's nine provinces. It covers an area of 38,465 km and named after Woleu and Ntem rivers that cross it. The provincial capital is Oyem, which had a total of 60,685 inhabitants in 2013. As Woleu-Ntem ...

due to "organizational reasons". The run-off in Elelem was held on 10 November; it was won by the candidate of the Heritage and Modernity Rally. 60 constituencies had a run-off vote as no candidate secured a majority in the first round. Full official results were expected in mid-December.

References

{{Gabonese elections

Legislative A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers ...

Parliamentary elections in Gabon

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results