Parliamentary elections were held in Libya on the 25^th of June 2014. This marks the third election in the post-revolutionary era and the Arab Spring revolution. The purpose of this election was to replace the General National Congress (GNC) with a 200-member Majlis Al Nuwab or Council of Representatives (CoR) to be tasked in drafting the new Libyan constitution.  Libya has a Unicameral parliament.

Out of the 3.4 million eligible voters,[1] a total of 1,509,128 Libyans registered; 60 percent (905,420 voters) were male and 40 percent (603,708 voters) were female. There were 1,643 polling centers.[2]  Polling took place in 1,591 centers (out of 1,643) due to either boycotts[3] by local communities, security concerns or attacks by armed gunmen.[4] These elections witnessed a significant amount of low voter turn out with less than half of the 3.5 million registered to vote turning out at the polls.[5]

Women Political Participation

Under Article 18 of the election law, 16% of seats are reserved for women; thus, 32 out of the 200 seats at stake in this election were reserved for women.[6]There were 13 primary electoral constituencies, further divided into 75 sub-constituencies or electoral centers. Candidates for general seats competed in all 75 sub-constituencies and candidates for the seats reserved for women competed in 27 sub-constituencies.[7] 

In contrast to the two previous elections, candidates were mandated to run as individuals rather than political entities. This was the source of a great deal of confusion as voters had to guess the affiliations of the candidates.[8] A total of 1,714 candidates registered to stand in the CoR elections. 1,565 candidates including three women were running for general seats, while 149 candidates were running for the 32 seats reserved for women.[9]

The election on the 7^th of July 2012 featured a revised electoral system that included gender parity principles that were the first of its kind in Libya. When law required that women must be placed on party lists, they made up 45% of the total number of party candidates, compared to only 3% when not obliged by law.[10] The enactment of this quota clearly resulted in a substantial increase in the number of women in parliament as the percentage of seats held by women more than doubled.

Currently, there are 33/200 (16.50%) women in the National Assembly.[11]

Women Representation Statistics

 

Women political Representation	As of 2012	As of 2013	As of 2014
Female  members of Parliament	33/200 (16.50%)[12]	33/200 (16.50%)[13]

 

 

 

 

• Libya