The civil initiative which collected signatures in June for a referendum to change election law said on Friday they are concerned that the government had still not counted and verified signatures collected, and added they had sent an appeal to European institutions regarding what they called the "undermined independence of the referendum process."
“We are concerned, because even after a month and a half after the signatures had been collected to call a referendum on changing the election system in Croatia, the government still has not decided to count and verify the signatures in the petition asking for the referendum,” a member of the organisation committee of the group, called The People Decides, Jelena Teklic, said.
The group had organised a petition drive on May 13-28 and collected more than 405,000 signatures across the country within two weeks, in order to submit a request for a referendum proposing changes to the country’s election system. Teklic added that it took their volunteers less than two weeks to count and verify all the signatures before they handed over the signatures to the government in June.
Teklic than accused the government of deliberately stalling the process of checking the signatures, which is a step in the process of calling of the referendum.
“We wish to emphasise that the government has on several occasions breached the Venice Commission’s recommendations calling for impartiality with regard to referendum issues, and that it would be good for an independent body to check the signatures,” Teklic said, and added that the initiative had proposed that the state election commission (DIP) should check the signatures.
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However. the government rejected their proposal.
“That is why we are concerned with this breach of democratic process that the government is making, compromising its impartiality,” Teklic said. She said that during the signature collection campaign, several government officials had lambasted their group, making false accusations.
“That showed that they were in conflict of interest because the measures we are proposing could directly affect them, and that is why we think they have compromised their trust and impartiality, and that they should not be involved in checking the signatures, which is a task that should be given to a neutral body,” she said.
“Considering that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had rejected that proposal (for DIP to check and verify the signatures), and intended to delegate the task to the Public Administration Ministry instead – whose minister grossly lied about the civil initiative – The People Decides is now appealing to international institutions – the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for European Security and Cooperation – concerning the undermining of the independence of the referendum process,” the initiative said, expecting those institutions to influence the Croatian government.
The initiative requested for Article 72 of Croatia’s Constitution to be amended to change the election law, and it summarised its proposed changes in two separate questions that were put up in the petition.
The first one refers to an overhaul of the election system, including the reduction of MPs from the currently mandated 100-160 (it now has 151) to a maximum of 120, introducing preferential votes for up to three candidates instead of voting for just one, the re-drawing of election districts, the reducing of election threshold from 5 to 4 percent, and that voters can vote via mail and online.
The second question refers to the reduction in voting rights for MPs representing ethnic minorities, as it proposes banning them from taking part in confidence votes in parliament, and the government budget.
The second question has caused some controversy, with a number of politicians from the ruling and opposition parties, as well as NGOs, saying limiting voting rights for ethnic minority MPs would violate the principle of equality for all MPs.
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