The result was a victory for the opposition Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) which won a plurality of 66 seats, but fell short of the 76 needed to form a government.

HDZ chairman Ivo Sanader was named the eighth Prime Minister of Croatia on 23 December 2003, after parliament passed a confidence motion in his government cabinet, with 88 MPs voting in favor, 29 against and 14 abstaining.

The citizens that live outside Croatian borders vote in a separate electoral unit.

[2] Distribution of minority seats:[3] Pre-election coalitions:[3] The number of diaspora mandates was reduced by two compared to previous elections due to somewhat lower diaspora turnout.

Due to distribution according to the d'Hondt method, the independent lists for diaspora were not allocated seats even if they received more than 5% of the total votes.