Currently there are 30 female MPs, meaning women make up a fifth of the legislature. In 2000, 34 women held seats in Parliament.

According to the Parliament's website, 23 women and 128 men were elected in the November vote. At the moment, there are 30 female representatives in the Parliament (20 percent) and 121 male representatives (80 percent).

Stagnation

The president of the parliamentary committee on gender equality, Gordana Sobol (SDP), is not happy with this figure. Sobol said that the number of directly elected women is the lowest since 2000 and warns about "definite stagnation," especially with regard to women in roles of political decision-making.

In 2000, there were 34 female members of Parliament, four years later 26, and 32 in 2007.

Despite this, Sobol said the State Attorney's Office concluded that there was no legal basis to launch infringement procedures against the parties and the coalitions that didn't have at least 40 percent of women on their election lists, because the Constitutional Court had previously overturned the sanctioning of the failure to comply with a balanced representation of women and men.

The State Attorney's Office said that it will not submit the State Election Commission (DIP) notification about the lists without the "female quota" to the relevant attorney's offices.

Women 'a punching bag'

"Since there is no will to solve the problem, women have become a punching bag between the Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the State Attorney's Office," said Sobol.

She says that a battle must be fought within the parties to legally solve the issue of female representation in a manner appropriate to the 21st century, especially regarding elections laws.

The Croatian Parliament transmits data to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which shows that the world average of women's representation in national assemblies is 22.7 percent. More precisely, 22.8 percent of seats in single-chamber parliaments or lower houses around the world are filled by women, and 25.7 percent in Europe.

The Nordic parliaments have the highest representation of women (41.1 percent), while the lowest levels are found in parliaments of Pacific nations (13.4 percent on average).