2012 Elections Monitoring

Take place on July 15th 2012, the previous legislative elections took place in 2007 making legislative elections every six years. The 2007 legislative elections saw ten or 7.3% of the 137 seats being won by women.
 

Women in Political Life

women won the right to vote and stand for election on December 8th 1963, although Congo Brazzaville has never had a female head of state and the numbers of female legislators is still relatively low in comparison to the number of total available seats. Nevertheless, Congo has had some notable female politicians such as Claudine Munari Mabondzo who was an MP in the National Assembly from 2002 to 2009 and was also the Second Secretary of the National Assembly from 2007 to 2009, since September 2009 she has served in the government as Minister of Trade[2].

Jeanne Dambendzet was appointed to the government on 13 August 1989 as Minister of Labour and Social Security, holding that post until 1991[3].

Source: Journal de Brazza. (2012) http://journaldebrazza.com/article.php?aid=1664

This year’s elections has an increased participation of female candidates in comparison to the 2007 elections. In 2007 102 women were listed as candidates compared to the 124 eligible candidates this year.[6] Another change in this years elections is that the number of seats in the Assembly has been increased from 137 to 139.[7]

Results of Legislative Elections

After two round the elections have been won by the PCT and it's allies who have won 117  of the 135 seats in parliament, the rest of the seats are divided between the  MCDDI who won 7 seats,  the UPADS won 7 seats,  12 seats were awarded to independant candidates.