ETHNIC MINORITIES' ELECTION BOMBS - ITALIAN MP

PULA, May 20 (Hina) - Elections for ethnic minorities' councils have failed, as the Italian minority had announced, because they were scheduled without consultations with minorities' associations, parliament, parliament's committee on human rights and minorities, and the National Minorities Council, Furio Radin, the Italian minority's MP, said on Tuesday. #L# The ballot was held needlessly because interested minorities had not requested it, as had neither Croatian citizens nor the international community, Radin told a news conference. "The non-governmental organisation GONG was the only body which informed national minorities of the failed election, which speaks enough about the government's interest in a quality election." Radin recalled the Italian Union had pointed to all the omissions in the organisation of the ballot in due time, but the government turned a deaf ear and acted as though it wanted to get an unpleasant commitment out of the way as soon as possible. Radin said the failure of the election "has created a climate in which national minorities mistrust the government and the government is cold towards national minorities, which is all unnecessary". He voiced concern about the fact that ethnic minorities had been halved since the 1991 census, when they accounted for 20 percent of the population to seven-eight percent today. (hina) ha sb