Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

elects on the national level a

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

– 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: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

– and a

legislature 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 power ...

. The president is elected for a five-year term by the people. 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 ...

(''Assemblée Nationale'') has 160 members, elected for a five-year term, 147 members elected in single-seat

constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

and 13 members elected by Malians living abroad.

Political parties

Mali has a

multi-party In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional r ...

system, with numerous

parties A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and

must work with each other to form

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

Gender parity

On 12 November 2015, the

voted in favour of a

gender parity Gender parity is a statistical measure used to describe ratios between men and women, or boys and girls, in a given population. Gender parity may refer to the proportionate representation of men and women in a given group, also referred to as Huma ...

law requiring at least thirty percent of elected or appointed officials to be women. The law was ratified the following month as Law 2015-052 of 18 December 2015.

Political parties

Gender parity

Latest elections

Presidential elections

Parliamentary elections

See also

References

External links