North Macedonia's 40% Candidate Quota — A Legal Target Meeting a Declining Outcome (2015-2025)

North Macedonia introduced a 30% gender quota for parliamentary and municipal candidate lists in 2006; Electoral Code amendments in the mid-2010s raised the threshold to 40% with placement rules and list-rejection sanctions for non-compliant lists.

The quota and placement rules aim to increase women's presence on candidate lists and, ultimately, in elected office.

The State Election Commission rejects non-compliant candidate lists outright, and any vacated seat must go to the next candidate of the same gender on the list.

Women's share of seats in the Sobranie has fluctuated around, and recently fallen below, the 40% legal threshold: 42.5% in 2024, dropping to 39.2% (47 of 120 seats) in 2025. At the municipal level, a 2021 IFES review found women made up 45% of candidates but only 36.2% of councillors actually elected.

A strict, sanction-backed candidate quota alone has not guaranteed proportional outcomes — parties retain room to place women in less winnable list positions, and gender equality was largely absent from recent campaign discourse.