Elections in Equatorial Guinea

The electoral framework is based mainly on the 2012 Ley Fundamental, Ley 7/2015 on presidential elections and Ley 8/2015 on legislative, Senate and municipal elections, as amended by Ley 6/2017. Ley 1/2025 extended the terms of members of the Cámara de los Diputados, Senado and municipal councils from five to seven years and provides for combined elections. A new nationwide election date was not reliably established in the available information. Citizens may vote from the age of 18 if they hold Equatorial Guinean nationality, appear in the Censo Electoral and have not temporarily or permanently lost their voting rights. Registration is practically required. A voter normally presents a national identity document or passport, receives or uses a voter card, is checked against the electoral roll, and has a finger marked with ink after voting. Citizens abroad register through embassies or consulates and vote at approved foreign polling locations. No general compulsory voting rule or reliable voter-registration fee was established in the available information. The President is elected in one national electoral district that includes approved overseas polling locations. The election uses one round and the candidate with the highest number of valid votes wins. Presidential candidates must generally be Equatorial Guinean by birth, retain their civil rights, have lived continuously in the country for at least five years, be at least 40 years old and hold no other nationality. The constitutional framework limits the President to two consecutive terms, while the current eligibility and incompatibility review is handled under the applicable election law. Parliament has two chambers. The Cámara de los Diputados has 100 seats. The Senado has 70 seats, including 55 elected seats and 15 presidential appointments, with former presidents holding an ex officio role under the constitutional framework. Parliamentary elections use closed-list proportional representation. The 2022 election observation framework identified seven multi-member districts for the deputies and 19 Senate districts, with a 10 percent threshold. Candidates for parliament generally need to be at least 25 years old. Municipal councils are elected through universal proportional voting with closed lists, but published sources do not agree on the total number of municipal seats: a government result reported 588 seats, while an AUEOM legal overview reported 244. The CEN, also called the Junta Electoral Nacional, administers the election operationally. According to the AUEOM assessment, it is not a permanent body: it is formed five days after the election decree and ends 100 days after the election. The Ministerio del Interior y Corporaciones Locales handles registration and preliminary results, the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores supports voting by citizens abroad, and the Tribunal Supremo validates candidacies, handles electoral disputes and determines final results. Audiovisual oversight is intended to provide equal airtime and media pluralism. The 2022 election illustrates the documented timetable and procedure. Registration took place in June to August, with a specifically reported period from 11 to 23 July. The campaign ran from 3 to 18 November, and voting took place on 20 November. Polling stations were scheduled to close at 18:00. Local counting was public; candidate representatives signed the result record and received a copy, although results were not systematically displayed locally. AUEOM observed 210 polling locations and reported that 99.8 percent of ballot boxes were correctly sealed, 91 percent had sufficient materials and 91 percent were accessible. Women made up 25 percent of polling staff. The state provided 350 million CFA francs to each presidential candidate in 2022. The official 2022 presidential result gave Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and the PDGE coalition 405,910 votes, or 94.9 percent of valid votes. The same coalition won all 100 deputy seats, all 55 elected Senate seats and, according to the government, all 588 municipal seats. Official participation figures were about 98 percent, although the reported participation total and the number of entries in the results register differed. Formal access to voting therefore exists, but the practical conditions are not equivalent to an open and fully competitive electoral contest. The USDOS documented credible allegations involving intimidation, non-secret voting, pre-marked ballots, multiple voting and unequal access for political parties. AUEOM assessed the observed process as largely compliant with the rules while recommending a permanent electoral commission, stronger administrative capacity, better accessibility and materials, greater representation of women and use of available legal remedies. The President is both head of state and head of government, so presidential and parliamentary results directly affect government formation. In 2022, the PDGE coalition retained a stable governing majority.