Number of Female MPs in Croatian Parliament Increases Slightly After Election

Female MPs on the rise in Croatia.

The number of female MPs in the Croatian Parliament has increased to 30, so now they make up a fifth of all MPs. While after the parliamentary elections held in November 23 female and 128 male candidates directly secured their seats in the Parliament, now the Parliament is made of 30 women and 121 men, reports Index.hr on February 16, 2016.

By political party, the largest number of female MPs come from SDP (8), HDZ (7) and HNS (6). MOST has three female MPs, HSU, Hrid, Labour Party and Milan Bandić’s Party have one female MP each, and there are two independent female MPs.

Of the 23 directly elected female MPs, 13 came from the Croatia Is Growing coalition, five from MOST, four from the Patriotic Coalition, and one as a representative of national minorities. Only one of them, Anka Mrak Taritaš (HNS), has been elected to the Parliament thanks to preferential votes given by voters to individual candidates.

The number of female MPs has increased after the new government was formed, since some of the elected male MPs became ministers and were substituted in the Parliament with female candidates. On the other hand, some of the female ministers in the former government, such as Vesna Pusić and Milanka Opačić, have returned to parliamentary benches.

However, Gordana Sobol (SDP), a long-time chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee on Gender Equality, is not satisfied. “The number of 23 directly elected female MPs is the lowest since 2000”, reminds Sobol and warns that it represents a “definite stagnation”, and even a regression of the role of women in political decision-making. Specifically, in 2000 as many as 34 female MPs were directly elected to the Parliament. Four years later there were 26 female MPs, while in 2007 there were 32 female MPs.

Sobol points out that one of the problems is the conclusion of the State Attorney’s Office that there was no legal basis to launch procedures against parties and coalitions which had less than 40 percent of female candidates on their electoral lists, since the Constitutional Court has abolished penalties for failure to comply with a balanced representation of women and men.

Sobol claims that there is no political will for the problems of equal representation to be solved. She says that it is now the time to wage a battle within political parties to change the laws so that the issue of representation of women would be resolved in a manner appropriate to the 21st century.

According to the Croatian Parliament, the global average of women’s representation in national assemblies and parliaments stands at 22.7 percent. The highest average representation of women is in the Nordic parliaments (41.1 percent), and lowest in the parliaments of the Pacific countries (13.4 percent).

 

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