Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, 25–27 September 2025

On 25 to 27 September 2025, the Seychelles held general elections to elect both the president and all members of the National Assembly for a five-year term. 

Each of the 26 electoral districts elects one representative directly into the unicameral parliament. Up to 9 further seats are distributed proportionately. Parties gain one additional representative for every 10% of votes received across the whole country. For the third consecutive election, only two parties are represented in Parliament. During the 2025 elections, The United Seychelles Party (US) received mandates for 19 seats, and the Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS) for 15 seats (ECS 2025). 

The presidency is determined through a two-round majoritarian system. Given that no candidate secured a majority of the votes in the first round, the two candidates with the largest vote share faced off in a second round, which was held from 9 to 11 October 2025. Following a highly contested campaign, the opposition leader Patrick Herminie (US) received 52.7% of votes and therefore ended the incumbent Wavel Ramkalawan’s (LDS) bid for a second term (ECS 2025). Thereby, the presidency returned to the United Seychelles Party after Ramkalawan’s win in 2020 had ended it’s 40-year reign (Le Monde). 

In 2023, when he was still the leader of the opposition, president elect Patrick Herminie was charged with witchcraft. Herminie denied all accusations and has titled them a “political show” to taint the image of the opposition and himself, as a prospective presidential candidate (BBC 2023). As part of police investigations, officers had raided his party’s offices looking for items related to witchcraft. In 2024, all charges were dropped. Herminie described the case as an "abuse of power" by then-President Wavel Ramkalawan (BBC 2024).

Further, the role of foreign actors in the Seychelles has been cause for debate. Most notably, a deal with Qatari investors signed by former President Ramkalawan has been heavily criticized. The contract allows the Qatari to lease ‘Assumption Island’ for 70 years with the goal of constructing a luxury resort on the mostly barren island. Beyond ecological concerns, critics consider the contract to be a loss of sovereignty of the Seychelles (BBC 2025). Patrick Herminie has promised to annul the deal and halt constructions that are already underway. He has denounced the interference of Qatari companies and accused them of financially supporting his opponents’ campaign in order to secure the continuation of the project (Le Monde 2025). 

The elections were conducted by the Electoral Commission Seychelles (ECS)consisting of a chairperson and six members, all of which are proposed by the Constitutional Appointments Authority before being appointed by the president. The responsibilities of the Commission include the supervision of voter registration, the review of constituency boundaries and political campaigns as well as reporting to the National Assembly and the President (SeyLII, Constitution of the Republic of the Seychelles, articles 115 and 116). 

National stakeholders expressed general satisfaction with the Commission’s professionalism and the 2025 general elections were considered to be peaceful and transparent (The Seychelles Independent 2025, SADC 2025). Nonetheless, various observing groups, such as the Mission électoral de la Francophonie (MEF), Citizen Democracy Watch Seychelles (CDWS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and a joint mission between the African Union and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (AU-COMESA) pointed to potential improvements. 

Final amendments to the electoral law were made only a few months before the start of the election process, creating uncertainty for candidates, parties and the ECS. Besides the timing of these amendments, the MEF criticized the changes made to the financing of political parties. Foreign funding has been authorized despite concerns of the lacking controlling mechanisms and transparency (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie 2025). Further, the nomination process for candidates was criticized. The window for candidacy applications was too short, and the handling of complaints by the ECS was not satisfactory. Due to an increase of parties and candidates compared to the last election, the ECS was likely overwhelmed, which led to an unequal access for candidates (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie 2025, SADC 2025). 

In terms of gender representation, 52% of registered voter were female. However, observers noted a clear underrepresentation of women among the candidates. Among the 125 candidates for the National Assembly, only 50 were female and not a single presidential candidate was a women (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie 2025, SADC 2025). While this is an improvement to the 2020 election, the SADC urges political parties to make a more deliberate effort for equal representation. Especially given that within the National Assembly the number of female representatives has declined from 8 to 7 out of 26 (SADC 2025).

The voter turnout in the first round of the elections was 84.12%. For the second round of the presidential election, this number rose to 86.73% (ECS 2025).