Elections in Macau

Macau elects at the regional level its head of government and legislature. The Legislative Assembly is made up of 33 members, of whom 14 are elected by popular vote under proportional representation, 12 elected from functional constituencies and 7 appointed by the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive of Macau is returned by a 400-member Election Committee on five-year intervals.

Voter registration and candidacy

Natural persons can register as an elector of direct suffrage to the Legislative Assembly if they:

have reached 18 years of age;
are permanent resident of Macau; and
are not declared by Courts as incompetent persons, deprived of political rights or manifestly insane.

Legal persons can nominate at most 22 electors with natural person suffrage to exercise the collective's voting rights for indirect suffrage to the Legislative Assembly and the Election Committee if they:

are confirmed to be operating within the specified sector for at least 4 years;
have obtained legal personality for at least 7 years; and
for the Election Committee elections, are not in office as the Chief Executive, Principal Officials, Judicial Magistrates, Public Ministers and Members of the Election Management Committee.

Natural persons registered as electors can run for elections of direct suffrage and indirect suffrage in the sector they belong to. Electors can also run for the Election Committee if they are not in office as the Chief Executive, Principal Officials, Judicial Magistrates, Public Ministers and Members of the Election Management Committee.

Legislative Assembly elections

Elections were held to return members of the Legislative Assembly since 1976. Members returned from direct suffrage and indirect suffrage have been elected with seats apportioned with a peculiar highest averages method. While D'Hondt uses 1,2,3,4,... as divisors, Macau instead uses 1,2,4,8,... as divisors Their method disadvantages large parties, which is highly unusual among electoral systems. Suffrage was opened to Macau Residents without Portuguese citizenship in 1984.
Compositions of elected seats in the Legislative Assembly are as follows:

Chief Executive elections

Candidates of the Chief Executive are required to be nominated by at least 50 members of the Election Committee, before he is returned by the Election Committee with an absolute majority. The compositions of electoral colleges returning the Chief Executive are as follows: