A total of 15.47% of Croatians went to the polls in Sunday's local elections by noon, which is almost the same turnout as in the 2017 local election, when 15.98% of voters had voted by noon, the State Election Commission said.

The commission will release new information on the turnout at 5 pm.

The highest turnouts were reported in Lika-Senj County (21%), Dubrovnik-Neretva County (19%) and Varaždin County (17.4%).

Sisak-Moslavina County, struck by a strong earthquake on 29 December, also had a rather good turnout, of 16.7%.

Of the four big cities, the highest turnout was reported in Zagreb (15.4%), followed by Split (14.4%), Osijek (13%) and Rijeka (12.4%).

A total of 3.660 million voters have the right to vote in elections for local self-government units and they can do so at 6,572 polling stations.

Voters will decide about the make-up of 425 municipal and 127 city councils, 20 county assemblies and the Zagreb City Assembly. They will also elect mayors and county heads, some 70 deputy mayors and county heads from the ranks of ethnic minorities and about a dozen deputy officials from the ranks of the Croat people in the municipalities where Croats are in the minority.

Polling stations are open from 7 am to 7 pm, until when election silence is in force.