ZAGREB, 26 April (Hina) – A total of 114 male and 37 female MPs were elected to the new 151-seat Croatian Parliament in the 17 April election, according to a report by the State Election Commission.

This is the largest number of elected women lawmakers since Croatia gained independence in the early 1990s, and now they make up a quarter of the Parliament. In the previous elections, 35 women were elected in July 2020 and only 19 in September 2016.

The newly-elected legislators are 51 years old on average. The average age of the female MPs is 49 years and of their male colleagues 51.5 years.

The youngest male MP is Armin Hodžić (born 1996), who represents five ethnic minorities, while the oldest male MP is Veselko Gabričević  (b. 1948), elected on the slate of the HDZ-led coalition.

The youngest female lawmaker is Sonja Radolović (b. 1987) from the SDP-led Rivers of Justice coalition. The oldest female MP Anka Mrak-Taritaš (b. 1959) comes from the same coalition.

Armin Hodžić is the only MP aged under 30. Most of the MPs (56) are aged 51 to 50, and 54 are aged 41 to 50.

A total of 2,302 candidates ran in the election, including 1,333 men (58%) and 969 women (42%).

As many as 66 out of 151 MPs were elected by preferential voting. In percentage terms, most of them were elected in Constituency 11, designed for the diaspora. Nearly 64% of voters opted to vote for their preferred candidate.

A total of 2,216,763 voters turned out for the vote, or 62.3%. The largest turnout, of nearly 70% or 235,854 voters, was recorded in Constituency 1 in Zagreb.