HDZ party whip Branko Bacic said on Wednesday that the main opposition Social Democratic Party's proposal for the reorganisation of constituencies was an attempt to introduce regionalisation through the back door, announcing that the ruling majority would soon launch changes to the election law.

“The Constitutional Court warned 12 years ago about the inequality of votes in individual constituencies considering differences in the number of voters in them of more than 5%. After the 2021 census, those differences have proven to be even bigger and the HDZ has decided that it is necessary to amend the election legislation,” Bacic said.

He added that changes would be made either to the Act on the Election of Members of Parliament, which envisages the election of 14 deputies in ten constituencies each or to the Act on Constituencies, which defines the borders of constituencies.

The HDZ official said the ruling majority wanted to make sure every vote counted the same, meaning that changes would be made either to the borders of constituencies or the number of deputies elected in existing constituencies.

The final deadline for these changes is one year before the parliamentary elections, but I believe that we will have changes to one of the two laws in the first reading before the summer recess, Bacic said.

“As for the SDP’s proposal advocating six constituencies instead of ten, it seems to be reintroducing the topic of regionalisation,” Bacic said, adding that the SDP had on many occasions advocated the abolishment of counties and the establishment of several regions.

“It is our view that the existing territorial structure in Croatia, based on the model of counties defined by Franjo Tudjman, is the best regional structure enabling Croatia’s regional development, and we will insist on it,” he said.

He added that the SDP’s proposal would lead to a loss of communication between voters and deputies as there is no direct communication between individual MPs and their voters in large constituencies with 700,000 to 800,000 voters.

Bacic did not agree with a reporter’s remark that current constituencies are illogical, saying that the ten constituencies had a reasonable territorial distribution, except for departures in two Zagreb constituencies, No. 7 and No. 6.

He also said that the SDP’s proposal would make access to the parliament more difficult for small, regional parties which have more difficulty being elected to the parliament in a big constituency.

Bacic added that the current election system with ten constituencies contributes to the stability of the political system and represents voters well, which, he said, is why there is no reason for a more dramatic change of the law or significant increase in the number of voters per constituency.

The HDZ whip also believes that it is necessary to continue to elect 140 deputies in the ten constituencies as that number is realistic and appropriate for Croatia’s size.