Morocco has joined the list of countries headed by women-led governments after appointing Fatima Zahra El Mansouri as prime minister, making her the first woman to hold the position in the country and the third Arab woman to become head of government. Her appointment places the issue of women’s representation at the top of executive power in a context extending beyond Morocco, as the number of women leading countries or governments around the world remains limited.
Two Tunisian experiences pave the way for El Mansouri
El Mansouri’s appointment as head of the Moroccan government followed two female-led experiences in Tunisia. Najla Bouden served as Tunisia’s prime minister between 2021 and 2023, before Sarra Zaafrani became prime minister in March 2025. Morocco thus became the second Arab country, after Tunisia, to have a woman become head of government.
Despite women’s growing participation in parliaments, cabinets and other decision-making institutions, they remain a minority among national and government leaders. Data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women showed that only 28 countries were led by a woman as head of state or government at the beginning of 2026.
101 countries have never had a woman in power
By contrast, 101 countries had never had a woman become head of state or government throughout their history. The figures reflect the gap between women’s growing presence in political institutions and their reaching the highest position in executive power, where their participation remains limited compared with men. In Europe, women have become heads of government in a number of countries, but their presence has varied from one country to another.
As of September 2026, women were heading the governments of Denmark, Italy, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Ukraine, in a political landscape combining continuing experiences with others that ended when the position passed to men. The list of female European heads of government includes Mette Frederiksen in Denmark, Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Kristrún Frostadóttir in Iceland.
Uneven female representation in Europe
However, a woman serving as head of government does not necessarily mean there is a comparable level of female representation in other governing institutions, just as the absence of a woman as head of government does not necessarily indicate weak participation by women in the cabinet. At European Union level, only two women were heading governments in September 2026: the prime ministers of Denmark and Italy.
In 2026, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania also passed from two women to two men, showing that women’s access to the position does not always translate into a sustained presence. In another direction, some European countries recorded high levels of female representation in cabinets despite having a man as head of government.
This highlights the difference between an individual woman reaching the top of executive power and the wider participation of women in running government institutions and shaping public policy. France provides an example of the lack of continuity in women’s presence at the head of government.
France records two widely separated female firsts
Edith Cresson became the first woman to head the French government in 1991, followed by Élisabeth Borne, who became the second woman to hold the position and served from May 2022 to January 2024. The French government says that Cresson and Borne are the only two women to have headed the government during the Fifth Republic to date.
The French experience shows that a woman’s arrival in the position does not automatically lead to sustained female representation at the top of the executive branch or to the experience being repeated at regular intervals. The United States differs constitutionally from Morocco and most European countries, as it has no position of prime minister; the president combines the roles of head of state and leader of the executive branch.
Although women have reached senior political positions, no woman has yet been elected president of the United States, while Kamala Harris became the first woman to serve as vice-president. A Pew Research Centre survey conducted from 6 to 12 July 2026 showed differing expectations among Americans about whether a woman would be elected president during their lifetime.
Some 37 per cent of participants said this was “unlikely” or “very unlikely”, while 17 per cent considered it “very likely” or “extremely likely”, and 44 per cent chose “somewhat likely”. The experiences of Morocco, Tunisia, European countries and the United States place El Mansouri’s appointment within a global trend in which women’s access to the top of executive power is no longer unprecedented, but remains limited.
The Moroccan experience also links the establishment of a local first, with the arrival of the first woman as head of government, to the sustainability of women’s political participation in the region’s highest decision-making positions.
