Serbia's 40% Electoral Gender Quota — From One-in-Three to Near-Parity Party Lists (2020-2025)

Serbia introduced a 33% gender quota for parliamentary and local-election candidate lists in the mid-2000s (one woman for every three candidates). In February 2020 the National Assembly amended the electoral code to raise the minimum share of the under-represented gender to 40% and added a placement rule: within every block of five list positions, three must go to one gender and two to the other. Lists that do not comply can be rejected by the Republic Election Commission before the ballot is finalised.

Women's representation has risen since the reform: from 36.4% (91 of 250 seats) after the 2022 election to 38% (95 of 250 seats) as of July 2025, according to Equal Future's tracking of the National Assembly. That is above pre-2020 outcomes and among the higher shares of women's representation in the Western Balkans, though still short of the 40% legal target.

An independent analysis of a decade of parliamentary rosters by the European Data Journalism Network found men still hold the majority of seats overall, that gains have been uneven across parties and constituencies, and that some major parties only fielded gender-balanced delegations starting in 2024 — evidence that a legal quota alone does not guarantee proportional outcomes at the ballot box.