Polish President Bronisław Komorowski signed a bill into law on Monday that sets a mandatory minimum quota for the number of women that must stand in political elections.

The proportion of women put forward for elections must now be 35 percent.

In Poland, political parties must submit a list of candidates before elections. Afterwards, the number of seats each party is awarded is proportional to the number of votes that it has won.

The individual candidates that win the seats, however, are determined by how many votes each manages to win, meaning the new quota won't necessarily directly correlate to the proportion of women in parliament.

Currently, the proportion of female MPs in Poland's parliament stands at around six percent, far below the 35 percent minimum that must now be placed on electoral lists for parliamentary elections due in the autumn.