Yearbook 2007
Seychelles. According to
CountryAAH, President James Michel's ruling party, the
Seychelles Progressive People's Front (SPPF), retained its
23 seats in the National Assembly following the May 10-12
parliamentary elections. The party, which has ruled since
1977, still has an absolute majority in the parliament,
which has a total of 35 seats. The two main opposition
parties, the Seychelles National Party (SNP) and the
Democratic Party (DP), joined forces in a coalition and
gained 11 seats, which was as many as the SNP alone had
before. The turnout was close to 86 percent.
The SNP had boycotted the National Assembly since October
2006, among other things. in protest of what the party
considered to be police violence against protesters. SNP
leader Wavel Ramkalawan had also demanded that the
opposition should have as much access to the country's media
as the government and that the electoral procedure should be
redone. The opposition considered boycotting the
parliamentary elections, but eventually participated. The
election was supposed to have been held in October, but
because of the boycott of the opposition, President Michel
chose to dissolve Parliament in March and advance the
election.
|
