ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - An expert task force which should draft the basic institutes of Croatia's new electoral legislation has given a basically positive assessment of the ruling party's electoral bill. The expert task force
believes the bill, with certain amendments, will help the holding of genuinely free and fair elections with equal conditions for all parties. Parliament president Vladimir Seks on Wednesday briefed the parliamentary bench of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) with the task force's review. The task force urges that the new electoral law be passed by political consensus among political parties. The experts believe the right to the division of representatives' seats in an electoral unit should be granted only to coalition lists of two or more parties which have won a minimum eight percent of the vote. The bill forwarded into parliamentary procedure suggests a uniform electora
ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - An expert task force which should draft the
basic institutes of Croatia's new electoral legislation has given a
basically positive assessment of the ruling party's electoral
bill.
The expert task force believes the bill, with certain amendments,
will help the holding of genuinely free and fair elections with
equal conditions for all parties.
Parliament president Vladimir Seks on Wednesday briefed the
parliamentary bench of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)
with the task force's review.
The task force urges that the new electoral law be passed by
political consensus among political parties.
The experts believe the right to the division of representatives'
seats in an electoral unit should be granted only to coalition lists
of two or more parties which have won a minimum eight percent of the
vote. The bill forwarded into parliamentary procedure suggests a
uniform electoral threshold of five percent.
Relative to the way of electing and number of representatives of
minorities, the expert task force believes the ruling and
opposition parties should agree on the matter, by taking into
consideration the minorities' representatives' opinion.
From the constitutional-legal point of view, the task force sees as
problematic the regulation which says that representatives of
minorities, which are entitled to one member in the House of
Representatives, should have a rotating two-year mandate, i.e. by
alternating every nine months and 15 days.
The Constitution stipulates that representatives are elected to
the parliament's houses to four-year mandates, the task force
reminds in the review, suggesting another solution which would
respect the Constitution.
The expert task force also suggests the inclusion into the
electoral bill of a regulation which would ban state-owned firms
from donating funds for electoral campaigns, and prevent foreign
citizens and firms from assisting parties which run in the
elections.
Thirty days from election day, every party or coalition which took
part in the elections should submit to the State Electoral
Committee full data on the amount of kunas spent in the electoral
campaign, the task force said.
The experts believe it is also necessary to clearly specify in which
cases parties have the right to electoral campaign refunds.
Croatian citizens not residing in Croatia would vote in a separate,
the tenth electoral unit. The number of representatives from that
unit would be established on the basis of the so called non-fixed
quota.
The expert task force believes the entire number of valid votes in
nine electoral units in Croatia should be divided by 108, which is
the number of representatives elected in the nine units. The
quotient would be used to divide the number of valid votes in the
tenth electoral unit. The final figure would be the number of
representatives elected in the tenth unit.
The expert task group includes Smiljko Sokol, Mirjana Kasapovic,
Branko Smerdel, Ivan Grdesic, and Marijo Jelusic.
(hina) ha jn