2008 Djiboutian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Djibouti on 8 February 2008. There were 65 candidates running for the 65 seats in the National Assembly, with all of the candidates coming from the ruling coalition, the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP). The opposition boycotted the election, and the UMP won all 65 seats.
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All 65 seats in the National Assembly | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Politics of Djibouti |
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Member State of the Arab League |
Africa portal Politics portal
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In boycotting the election, the opposition complained that the electoral system guaranteed victory for the UMP; in the previous parliamentary elections in 2003, the UMP won all 65 seats despite the opposition receiving 38% of the vote. The opposition unsuccessfully demanded that proportional representation be introduced. Ismael Guedi Hared, a leader of the opposition Union for a Democratic Alternative, said that the country effectively had a one-party system, that "none of the democratic rules [were] respected", and that the government was unwilling to accept proportional representation because it was fearful of discontent.