The only woman in the Papua New Guinea parliament in the past two terms, Dame Carol Kidu, says there is a possibility of a by-election for reserved seats for women.
Dame Carol is retiring but hopes there will be other women elected in open seats in next month's poll.
For years she has been promoting temporary reserved seats for women but a last ditch effort to get legislation through parliament earlier this year failed.
Now women in PNG appear unlikely to have special seats set aside for them before the following election in 2017.
But Dame Carol says if they could get the changes needed to the Enabling Act a by-election for 22 reserved seats for women as soon as 2014.
"The only reason [such a move might fail] is that the politicians don't support it, because financially by 2014 there will be such a huge budget for this nation that they can no longer use the excuse that there is not enough money to have more members. Some people are working towards that now but we see what happens [ in the election] - I hope there will be some win."
