Article 7 of the draft amendments redrafts Article 17 of the Law. The new Article 17 para 5 stipulates that “The council (board, presidency, etc.) shall be the body determining the strategy for the current activities of the political party. Members of the council shall be elected by the congress as and for a term prescribed by the charter of the political party. The number of members of the council must not be less than five. The number of representatives of each gender in the composition of the council must not exceed 60 per cent”. In case of not meeting these quotas, public funding of the political party will be suspended pursuant to Article 14 para 6 of the draft amendments (new Article 26 para 8 of the Law). It is welcome to make public funding conditional on achieving a gender-balanced composition of the council as required by the draft amendments. However, as suspending public funding is quite a drastic measure and to close loopholes open to abuse, it is recommended for the draft law to include a provision that would trigger suspension only after a certain period of time (e.g. after four or six months) in order to give political parties the opportunity to rectify the situation and account for cases in which unforeseen circumstances (e.g. illness) force council members to quit their positions. The authorities are ready to amend the draft to provide time for political parties before suspending public funding.