Electoral system for national legislature

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Law No. 06/006 of March 9, 2006 on the organization of presidential, legislative, provincial, urban, municipal and local elections as amended by Law No. 11/003 of June 25, 2011, Law No. 15/001 of 12 February 2015, Law No. 17/013 of December 24, 2017, and Law No. 22/029 of June 29, 2022; accessed 26 December 2023

Section 118. National deputies are elected by direct universal suffrage, for a renewable five-year mandate, under the following conditions:

1. the total number of valid votes cast is determined for the entire national territory;

2. a representativeness threshold of 1% of the total number of valid votes cast is determined at national level;

3. a seat is automatically allocated to the candidate having obtained half of the votes validly cast in the constituency;

4. only the lists of political parties and groups or independents having reached or exceeded this national threshold of 1% are admitted to the allocation of seats;

5. in constituencies with one seat to be filled, voting takes place by simple majority vote. The candidate who obtains the greatest number of votes is declared elected;

6. in constituencies with two or more seats to be filled, voting takes place by proportional voting of lists open to a single preferential vote with application of the rule of the largest remainder and following the procedures provided for in article 119 below.

However, when the competing lists having reached the threshold have not exhausted the seats in a constituency, the remaining seats are allocated to the other lists using the proportional proportion of the lists open to a single preferential vote with application of the strongest remainder.

Section 119. When proportional voting of open lists is applied, the procedure is as follows:

1. the names of the candidates appear on the list in alphabetical order;

2. the voter votes for a single candidate;

3. for the purpose of the proportional distribution of seats, his vote is counted under the list;

4. the number of votes on the list is the sum of the votes obtained by the candidates registered on this list;

5. seats are allocated to the lists in proportion to the number of votes obtained.

The application of the rule of the strongest remainder is carried out according to the following modalities:

1. an electoral quotient is determined by dividing the number of votes obtained by the lists of parties and political groups as well as the independents admitted to the allocation of seats by the

number of seats to be filled in the constituency;

2. for each list, the number of seats obtained is equal to the number of votes obtained by this list divided by this quotient;

3. if there are still seats to be allocated following this first distribution, the highest remaining rule is applied. The lists are listed in descending order. Seats are allocated based on this ranking.

For each list, the allocation of seats to candidates takes into account the number of votes obtained by each of them.

The candidates on each list are ranked in descending order of the votes they obtained. The candidate(s) having obtained the most votes are declared elected, within the limit of the number of seats allocated to each list.

When for the allocation of the last seat to be filled, two or more lists obtain an equal number of votes, the remaining seat is allocated to the oldest candidate.

In 62 single members districts, the winner is decided using FPTP system; in multi-member districts with two or more seats, the winners are decided using open list PR system.