Djibouti held its latest presidential elections on 10 April 2026. The election was won by incumbent Ismaël Omar Guelleh, who received 97.01% of the vote. No woman stood as a candidate, and the election took place in a context of near-total absence of meaningful political opposition. No woman ran in the presidential election.
On 10 April 2026, the Republic of Djibouti held a presidential election under the multiparty system established by the Constitution of 1992. Two main candidates contested the election: incumbent President Ismaël Omar Guelleh, 78, representing the ruling RPP/UMP coalition, and Mohamed Farah Samatar, president of the Unified Democratic Centre (CDU). The Constitutional Council confirmed the final election results on 21 April 2026: Guelleh won with 97.01% of the vote, and Samatar obtained only 2.99%, with an official voter turnout of 80.33%.
Guelleh's candidacy for a sixth consecutive term was made possible by a constitutional amendment removing the 75-year age limit that had applied to presidential candidates. On 26 October 2025, all 65 members of the National Assembly unanimously adopted a bill lifting this age limit. The president of the Djiboutian League of Human Rights (LDDH), Omar Ali Ewado, publicly condemned the change as a step toward a permanent presidency. Guelleh officially declared his candidacy on 8 November 2025.
A near-total absence of meaningful opposition characterised the political context leading up to the elections. The Bloc for National Salvation (BSN), a coalition created in May 2024 comprising the Republican Alliance for Democracy (ARD) and the Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (MRDD), did not propose a candidate. Freedom House has consistently found that there is no realistic opportunity for the opposition to gain power through elections in Djibouti. Samatar's CDU holds no seats in parliament; Al Jazeera reported that only a few dozen people attended one of his campaign events, compared with thousands at Guelleh's rallies. The BSN's decision to abstain, like similar boycotts by its constituent parties since 2016, reflected structural mistrust of the electoral framework. The ARD and MRDD have consistently called for the independence of the CENI (the Independent National Electoral Commission) and the full implementation of the 2014 inter-party agreement on institutional reforms. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies noted that the electoral playing field remains heavily tilted, with independent media unable to operate freely within the country.
The African Union (AUEOM), IGAD, the League of Arab States, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation deployed election observation missions. AUEOM assessed that the election took place in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, noting the involvement of women and young people demonstrated progress in inclusive governance.
The IGAD mission found that political competition was limited and opposition participation relatively low. It noted that women participated actively as voters and polling officials, with approximately 46% of the electoral register being women, while observing that women remain under-represented in political leadership and candidacy and recommended broader engagement of civil society, women, and youth in future electoral processes.
Women's Political Participation
In the 2026 presidential election in Djibouti, there was no female candidate. Djibouti has never had a female president or prime minister. Since independence in 1977, all six prime ministers have been men, and no woman has ever formally contested a presidential election.
Following the parliamentary elections of 24 February 2023, women currently occupy 17 out of 65 seats in the National Assembly, representing 26% of members, slightly above the legally mandated minimum of 25%. The introduction of a gender quota has positively impacted women’s representation in the legislature. Before the 2003 elections, no woman had been elected to the National Assembly. Following the 2003 election, 7 women were elected. Following the amendment of the quota law in January 2018 (Loi n° 219/AN/18/7ème L), the number of women more than doubled: fifteen were elected in February 2018.
Following the April 2026 election, a new 26-member cabinet was announced on 18 May 2026, including seven female ministers and one secretary of state:
- Mouna Osman Aden, Minister of Health
- Hana Farah Assoweh, Minister of Women and Family Affairs
- Ouloufa Ismail Abdo, Minister of Social Affairs and Solidarity
- Amina Abdi Aden, Minister of Urbanism and Housing
- Fardoussa Moussa Egueh, Minister of Youth and Culture
- Safia Mohamed Ali Gadileh, Minister Delegate in charge of Digital Economy and Innovation
- Mariam Hamadou Ali, Minister of Investments and Private Sector Development
- Fatouma Ali Abdallah, Secretary of State for Sports
This represents an increase from the six women (25%) in the 2021 cabinet.
Advancing Women’s Rights: Legislative and Policy Progress
Legislative and policy reforms have contributed to the advancement of women’s rights in the country. Djibouti implemented legislated gender quotas for the National Assembly in 2002. The first quota law, Loi n° 192/AN/02/4ème L, required that candidate lists include at least 10% of either sex. In January 2018, this threshold was substantially raised by Loi n° 219/AN/18/7ème L, which mandates that at least 25% of National Assembly members must be women and that political parties must ensure a minimum of 25% representation of each sex on candidate lists, failing which the list is inadmissible.
In December 2019, the National Assembly established two dedicated parliamentary bodies: the Caucus of Djiboutian Women Parliamentarians (CFPD) and the Gender Caucus, designed to strengthen the role of women deputies in parliamentary work, connect women MPs with the female electorate, and organise parliamentary caravans on violence against women and girls.
In February 2020, the National Assembly adopted a standalone law on the protection, prevention, and care of women and children who are victims of violence. The Law establishes a comprehensive framework, including the criminalisation of domestic violence and marital rape; restraining and exclusion orders; a coordinated care pathway obliging health, social, and judicial services to act jointly for victims; and mandatory referral to specialised support services.
Djibouti has sought to further strengthen women’s rights through policy initiatives. The National Gender Policy 2023–2030 sets out objectives to transform gender relations, promote women's empowerment, address gender-based violence, and mainstream gender equality into public governance at central and local levels. The Policy’s mainstreaming pillar provides for gender focal points in each ministry, gender-responsive budgeting mechanisms, training of regional and district administrators, and monitoring mechanisms tracking progress across Djibouti's six administrative regions.
Women in Political and Public Life: Challenges and Barriers
Despite legislative advances, Djiboutian women continue to face profound structural and cultural obstacles to genuine political participation. At the 87th CEDAW session in February 2024, Committee Vice Chairperson and Country Rapporteur for Djibouti Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia concluded that while the extensive legislative and judicial reforms were commendable, the full guarantee of rights for women and girls in Djibouti remained weak. The Family Code, the Land Compensation Act, labour laws, and migration and asylum policies were identified as examples of inadequate legal frameworks, and the committee also noted the absence of provisions directly prohibiting discrimination against women by private enterprises and other non-state actors. Additionally, Djibouti's Constitution of 1992, while proclaiming equality regardless of gender, contains no specific provisions on eliminating gender-based inequalities in the social and economic spheres.
The Djiboutian government itself acknowledged that the ratio of female employment to the total population remained at only 15.6%, despite a labour force participation rate of 30%. High female illiteracy and limited access to economic resources compound women's exclusion from political life. In the area of personal status law, women continue to face legal discrimination: both Sharia-derived rules and the Civil Code apply, and the delegation confirmed to the CEDAW Committee that work on revising discriminatory provisions of the Personal Status Code was still ongoing.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) remains one of the most severe structural indicators of gender inequality. The practice was criminalised under Article 333 of the Penal Code in 1995; in its February 2024 CEDAW presentation, the Djiboutian government itself stated that 70% of girls and women aged 15 to 49 had undergone FGM, while acknowledging that strong religious and cultural resistance meant behavioural change would take considerable time.
Advocating for Change: Women Driving Progress
Despite the constraints outlined above, Djiboutian women have increasingly mobilised at the community and institutional levels to advance gender equality. The National Union of Djiboutian Women (UNFD), chaired by the First Lady and supported by the government, works in partnership with multiple ministries to combat gender-based violence. Its Cellule d'Écoute (Listening Committee) addresses cases of violence against women and girls and refers them to the Ministry of Justice or the sharia council as appropriate. UNFD also leads national campaigns against FGM and domestic violence. Since 2021, the Elle&Elles peer network has reached over 4,000 people in underserved areas.
Other groups also address violence against women. The Rasmy Association provides free legal advice to GBV survivors and accompanies them through judicial procedures; Elle & Elles' peer educators focus on refugee and migrant women vulnerable to GBV and harmful practices in areas where state services are absent.
Female MPs within the CFPD use parliamentary caravans as community dialogue platforms, gathering women's testimonies on barriers to rights and feeding these into legislative advocacy. In 2022, IPU supported a series of parliamentary caravans, during which fifteen National Assembly members visited communities in four of Djibouti's six regions to explain women's rights legislation, including the 25% quota and the 2020 law on violence against women. In 2019, the National Assembly also established a Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (PGPD). The PGPD's work centres on accelerating the elimination of FGM by building cross-party consensus on enforcement of the 1995 criminalisation and increasing investment in community-based abandonment programmes; advocating for stronger budgetary commitments to women's health, reproductive rights, and girls' education through parliamentary budget oversight; and connecting parliamentarians with SDG5 monitoring mechanisms.
Conclusion
On 10 April 2026, incumbent President Ismaël Omar Guelleh was re-elected to a sixth consecutive term with 97.01% of the votes. The 2026 presidential election, in which no woman stood as a candidate and which took place in a context of consolidated one-party rule and near-total absence of competitive opposition, offered no pathway to advances in women's executive representation.
Djiboutian women face persisting challenges. The CEDAW Committee's February 2024 Concluding Observations and Freedom House's assessments, among others, underline that the full guarantee of rights protection for women and girls in Djibouti remains structurally weak. Sustained progress will require not only the maintenance and rigorous enforcement of quota mechanisms but also a parallel commitment to closing the gender gap in education and employment, enforcing legislation against FGM and gender-based violence, and broadening the civic and political space that women need to participate freely and meaningfully in public life.
Djibouti's trajectory on women's political participation presents a mixed picture. The adoption of a gender quota contributed to the increase of women elected to the legislature. In terms of political appointments, Djiboutian women in the cabinet have historically been concentrated in women's affairs, social protection, family, and health portfolios, with no woman to date having held defence, interior, economy and finance, or foreign affairs. The 2026 cabinet marks partial progress: Safia Mohamed Ali Gadileh (Digital Economy and Innovation) and Mariam Hamadou Ali (Investments and Private Sector Development) hold portfolios with an economic and strategic dimension.
The establishment of parliamentary caucuses, the adoption of the 2020 law on violence against women, the National Gender Policy 2023-2030, and the advocacy work of civil society organisations such as Elle&Elles, the Rasmy association, and the UNFD represent meaningful, if partial, advances. Behind these gains lie the sustained efforts of Djiboutian women who continue to drive change.