The National Assembly (Arabic: الجمعية الوطنية; French: Assemblée Nationale) is the unicameral legislative house of the Parliament of Mauritania. The legislature currently has 176 members, elected for five-year terms in electoral districts or nationwide proportional lists.
After the Second World War, the French Union was established, granting Colonial Mauritania the right to elect a representative to the French National Assembly and a local assembly. In 1946 a General Council was elected, composed of 20 members elected through censitary suffrage in two electoral colleges, one for French citizens and other for voters with an indigenous status (Mauritanians and nationals of other territories). This council only had a consultative function, debating on local issues and non-political questions.[1]
In 1952 universal suffrage was introduced for the first time, with the creation and election of a 24-member Territorial Council, also elected through two electoral colleges. This Territorial Council soon evolved into the Territorial Assembly, elected in 1957 without the segregation of voters in two colleges. This Territorial Assembly established the first Mauritanian autonomous government under French administration and declared the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania on 28 November 1958 after a French-backed referendum.[1]
The National Assembly was first elected in 1959 as a constituent assembly to draft a constitution and proclaim the independence of Mauritania from France on 28 November 1960.[1]
The 176 deputies are elected by two methods (with Mauritanians being able to cast four different votes in a parallel voting system); 125 are elected from single- or multi-member electoral districts based on the departments (or moughataas) that the country is subdivided in (which the exception of Nouakchott, which has been divided in three 7-seat constituencies based on the three regions (or wilayas) the city is subdivided in instead of the single 18-seat constituency that was used in 2018),[2] using either the two-round system or proportional representation; in single-member constituencies candidates require a majority of the vote to be elected in the first round and a plurality in the second round. In two-seat constituencies, voters vote for a party list (which must contain one man and one woman); if no list receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a second round is held, with the winning party taking both seats. In constituencies with three or more seats, closed listproportional representation is used, with seats allocated using the largest remainder method.[3] For three-seat constituencies, party lists must include a female candidate in first or second on the list; for larger constituencies a zipper system is used, with alternate male and female candidates.[3]
The Mauritania diaspora gets allocated four seats, with the 2023 election being the first time Mauritanians in the diaspora were able to directly elect their representatives.[2]
The remaining 51 seats are elected from three nationwide constituencies, also using closed list proportional representation: a 20-seat national list (which uses a zipper system), a 20-seat women's national list and a new 11-seat youth list (with two reserved for people with special needs), which also uses a zipper system to guarantee the representation of women.[2][3]
Number of seats
The number of seats in the National Assembly has varied over the years. In 1959 there were 40 seats, increasing to 50 in 1971, 70 in 1975 (with 7 seats temporarily added during the 1975–1979 Mauritanian occupation of Western Sahara), 79 in 1992, 81 in 2001, 95 in 2006, 146 in 2013, and 157 in 2018. The number of seats will increase in 2023 to 176 after an election reform.
Seat evolution of the Mauritanian National Assembly per legislature
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