Algeria's Gender Candidate Quota (Organic Law 12-03) and Its 2021 Rollback

In 2012, Algeria's Organic Law 12-03 introduced a sliding-scale candidate quota — requiring 20% to 50% women on party electoral lists depending on constituency size — with a hard enforcement mechanism: lists that failed to meet the threshold were rejected outright, and parties received extra state funding for each woman elected.
The effect was immediate and large. Women's share of seats in the People's National Assembly rose from about 7.7% in the 2007 election to 31.6% in 2012, one of the largest single-election jumps recorded worldwide, verified by UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
Representation held at a reduced but still substantial 25.76% in the 2017 election. In 2021, however, Algeria replaced the closed reserved-seat list system with an open-list system paired with a nominal 'parity' requirement on candidate lists rather than a binding rule on elected seats. Loopholes allowed non-compliant lists to stand, and with voters — not fixed list order — determining winners, women's share of candidates (36.8%) did not translate into seats.
Women's representation collapsed to just 8.11% in the 2021 election, nearly erasing a decade of gains and returning Algeria close to its pre-2012 baseline. The case is one of the starkest documented illustrations that a candidate quota's design and enforcement mechanism — not just its stated target — determines whether it converts into actual seats.

Read the full analysis: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/women-and-politics-algeria-one-step-forward-two-steps-back