At the local elections held in Croatia last Sunday, more than 3.7 million citizens had the right to vote, for over 47.000 candidates for more than 9.500 different functions at the local and regional level.

According to unofficial information from the State Election Commission of the Republic of Croatia, until 9:30 this morning, data of more than 99% of the total number of polling stations has been processed, with an average turnout of 46%. The local elections were monitored by over 12.000 observers.

The monitoring team of GONG, an organization for promoting active participation of citizens in political processes, in its initial report on the first round of the local elections, presented information on a smaller number of irregularities compared to previous election cycles.

Lack of education and unprofessional conduct by some polling stations are still the main problem in exercising the voting rights.

According to reports of citizens, GONG also notes violation of election silence in several cases, telephone harassment, propagating to citizens door-to door on who to vote for, putting up posters and violation of election silence on the social networks.

“Yesterday GONG reported on the basis of identified reports of citizens about a certain number of irregularities, which are less than in previous elections. The reports are in terms of the work of the electoral boards. At these elections, there were four ballots to be circled, but some polling stations gave voters only two ballots. Some electoral boards did not provide secrecy of voting in some polling stations, and at some polling stations citizens had been registered as if they had already voted”, stated international expert on election observation in GONG Dragan Zelic, in a telephone conversation for CIVIL Media.

Reports for violation of election silence are subject to sanctions, as Zelic stated, in the amount from 3.000 to 5.000 Kuna.

“We remain to see whether the competent electoral institutions will initiate criminal charges for the violation of the election silence”, stated Zelic, stressing the problem with informing and educating citizens in terms of realizing their voting rights.

“The election campaign was in a deep shadow of the political developments at the national level. In Croatia, currently we have a crisis in the government, a constitutional crisis, because the Prime Minister has dismissed four ministers, without a proposal for new ministers that would replace them”, said Zelic, outlining that the election campaign had not been focused on local issues, but rather precisely on problems in the context of the political situation in which Croatia is in.

Biljana Jordanovska