Chamber of Deputies (Equatorial Guinea)

The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Equatorial Guinea.
Although vested with considerable powers under the country's constitution, the Chamber has been dominated by the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea since its establishment, and there is virtually no opposition to executive decisions. Indeed, there have never been more than eight opposition legislators in the body.

Electoral system

The 100 members of the Chamber are elected by closed-list proportional representation in multi-member constituencies. Members serve five-year terms.

The first legislative body was the unicameral General Assembly of Spanish Guinea which was established in 1964, when Spanish Guinea was given autonomy. It was replaced by the Republican Assembly in October 1968, which had 36 deputies elected for five-year terms. An upper house, the Republican Council, was also created. Mba Ada was the first president of the Republican Council. The Council ceased to exist in 1973 when most of the members fled the country or were murdered. By 1974, four or every five deputies of the earlier Republican Assembly had been murdered.
The Republican Assembly was replaced by the Popular National Assembly in the Constitution of 1973. It had 60 deputies effectively selected by the United National Workers' Party, the sole legal party at the time. The legislature was dissolved in 1979 following a coup d'état.
A unicameral House of Representatives of the People was created in 1983. All members needed to swear an oath of allegiance to Obiang Nguema.
In 2013, an upper house was reintroduced in the form of a Senate, and the House of Representatives of the People became the lower chamber, renamed to the Chamber of Deputies.