HRW: New electoral law in Tunisia unfair to women

November 4, 2022 

A new electoral law introduced by Tunisian President Kais Saied in September eliminated the principle of gender parity in elected assemblies, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report said earlier this week.

According to the report, a majority of Tunisians voted in favour of a new Constitution this summer, which gave the president far more powers.

"The new law strips gender parity provisions from a previous electoral law that strove to ensure equal representation between men and women in Tunisia's elected assemblies, although Tunisia's new Constitution explicitly upholds this principle," the report said.

"The new electoral law, however, replaces the previous proportional representation system by a single-member constituency system without providing provisions aimed at equal gender representation," HRW added.