Malians went to the polls on 24th November 2013 to vote in parliamentary elections. There were 147 seats up for grabs in the National Assembly, and 6 million registered voters.

 

Mauritania heads to the polls on 23rd November 2013 to vote in legislative elections. According to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), 439 people are vying for the 147 seats in parliament. [1]

 

The presidential elections in Madagascar have been postponed several times but were finally held on October 25, 2013. These are the first elections since the 2009 coup led by Andry Rajoelina against the former president Marc Ravalomanana.

 

Rwanda headed to the polls to vote in parliamentary elections on 16th September 2013. 5,953,531 Rwandans are said to have registered to take part in voting for Rwanda’s Chamber of Deputies, the Lower House of Parliament.[i] Rwanda has a Bicameral Parliament.[ii]

The 31st July 2013 election in Zimbabwe is set to be the first election under the new constitution approved by a national referendum in March 2013 and signed into law later in May 2013.

 

The first round of the Presidential elections in Mali are scheduled to be held on Sunday July 28. The elections were initially scheduled for April 2012, but they were postponed due to a weak security situation after the coup d'état on March 21 2012.

Togo’s long delayed legislative elections, finally took place on 25th July 2013 when the Togolese people went to the polls. Early this year, the opposition threatened to boycott the elections, which had been rescheduled for March 2013 but later pushed again to July.[i]

Equatorial Guinea went to the polls on the 26th of May 2013 to vote in Senatorial and Legislative elections. Delegations from the African Union (AU) and the Africa Caribbean &Pacific Group (ACP) monitored the elections to ensure that they were free and fair and adhered to democratic values.

Cameroon’s first-ever Upper House of Parliament, the Senate (Sénat) elections are taking place on Sunday April 14th 2013. 70 seats are up for election, the majority expected to be won by the ruling party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement/ Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (CPDM/ RDPC).

As Kenyans head to the polls on 4th March 2013 in highly anticipated and closely watched presidential elections, there is a world-wide call for the elections to not only be fair but peaceful. This is following the last elections in 2007 that were very volatile and highly divisive along ethnic lines and led to post election violence where more than 1200 people lost their lives,[i] around 600,000 were internally displaced[ii] and sexual and gender violence was perpetuated against women and girls.

Djibouti went to the polls for the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) elections on the 22nd of February 2013. More than 173,000 people are expected to have voted for the 65 seats available in the National Assembly.[i] It is also said to be the first time in a decade that the opposition has not boycotted the elections.[ii] In fact no opposition politicians have been elected in the Horn of Africa nation since it gained its independence from France in 1977. [iii] This means that there will be opposition politicians in the parliament, a good sign for democracy in Djibouti.

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