Liste Zébrée: Gender-Alternation Candidate Lists for Local Elections

The Central African Republic's Law No. 16.004 (24 November 2016) introduced a minimum 35% quota for women candidates on party lists, carried into the 2019 Electoral Code and reaffirmed in the 2023 Constitution. For local elections, authorities additionally applied a 'liste zebree' (zebra list) rule requiring strict male-female alternation down each list.

Where the zebra-list alternation rule was enforced locally, women's representation in territorial collectivities reached 45-53%, above the 35% legal floor. At the national level, which lacks an equivalent alternation requirement, the 2025 general elections saw women win only 12.5% of candidacies (86 of 687) and hold about 11.4% of National Assembly seats (16 of 140).

The case shows a numeric quota alone is not self-enforcing: the same 35% threshold produced near-parity locally under a strict alternation mechanism, but a large shortfall nationally where parties faced no equivalent structural rule, financial constraints, weak party support and, in some regions, ongoing insecurity.