One of the serious gaps in this election was that women rarely participated in the campaign, head of the delegation from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Nahima Lanjri said during a press conference of the international observers on Monday.

“When driving through the city we saw that they rarely participate in the campaign, but many of them were working hard as the members of the electoral commission,” she said.

All candidate lists met the 25 per cent gender quota requirement and 32 per cent of the 1,444 candidates were women. This quota does not, however, ensure the same proportion of women’s representation in parliament, partly because half of the seats are distributed according to preferential votes

Woman only occasionally campaigned on their own, and it is upsetting that some women were targeted by gender-based rhetoric.

“Politics has historically been a man’s world but, as women are more than half of the population, this should be reflected in politics as well. I hope to see reforms that will encourage more women in politics and to ensure that the next elections are fully representative of both men and women,” she said.