ZAGREB, April 3 (Hina) - Please note that the news item released under the headline "MINORITY ELECTIONS TO BE HELD ON MAY 18" should be corrected in two sections referring to the mention of to so-called additional elections. The
correction is that no additional elections have been called. The corrected version is as follows:"ZAGREB, April 3 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday forwarded to the State Electoral Commission (DIP) decisions on calling elections for members of minority councils in municipalities, towns and counties and representatives of minorities in municipalities, towns and counties.
ZAGREB, April 3 (Hina) - Please note that the news item released
under the headline "MINORITY ELECTIONS TO BE HELD ON MAY 18" should
be corrected in two sections referring to the mention of to so-
called additional elections. The correction is that no additional
elections have been called.
The corrected version is as follows:
"ZAGREB, April 3 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday
forwarded to the State Electoral Commission (DIP) decisions on
calling elections for members of minority councils in
municipalities, towns and counties and representatives of
minorities in municipalities, towns and counties. #L#
Minority council elections should be held on May 18.
Considering that only members of national minorities will take part
in those elections, it will be necessary to regulate ways to
identify voters as members of minorities, DIP chair Ivica Crnic
said.
Elections for minority councils have been called in line with the
Constitutional Law on Minority Rights, adopted last December, and
refer to units of local and regional self-government where
minorities make up at least 1.5% of the local population (municipal
and town minority elections require more than 200 and county
elections more than 500 minority voters).
Elections for minority councils will take place in 20 counties, the
City of Zagreb, and in 79 towns and 185 municipalities.
Municipal, town and county minority councils have 10, 15 and 25
members respectively.
Members of those councils are elected exclusively by minorities for
a four-year-term in a secret ballot.
Additional elections for minorities, i.e. their representatives in
authorities in areas where the number of elected minority deputies
at the 2000 local ballot was lower than the number envisaged by the
results of the 2001 census, have not yet been called.
Under the constitutional law on the ethnic minorities' rights, such
kind of the vote should have been organised by 23 March in five
counties and 83 units of local self-rule (municipalities and
towns). The problem was that the local elections were held before
the conduct of the 2001 national census, and the exact number of
ethnic minorities' members was established after the local
ballot."
We apologise for any inconvenience.
(hina) rm ms sb