ZAGREB, Sept 16 (Hina) - The House of Counties of the Croatian National Sabor on Thursday supported a bill on electoral units for the House of Representatives, proposed by the Croatian Democratic Union's Party Bench.
ZAGREB, Sept 16 (Hina) - The House of Counties of the Croatian
National Sabor on Thursday supported a bill on electoral units for
the House of Representatives, proposed by the Croatian Democratic
Union's Party Bench.#L#
Opposition MP's did not give their approval for the bill or in the
least were sustained. They objected to the subdivision of the
Zagreb and some other counties and considered this as an attempt to
manipulate the elections. The bill is an attempt to dilute
opposition votes thereby enabling better results for the ruling
party, Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) bench leader Zeljko Pecek
said.
According to the bill, 3,788,237 voters in Croatia would cast their
ballots in nine units. The tenth unit would be reserved for Croat
citizens not resident in Croatia. Details kept by central
statistics estimate these amount to 357,678 eligible voters,
Vladimir Seks said on behalf of the bill's proposer.
Seks reported that the bill literally adhered to the principle that
the number of voters could vary, plus or minus, five per cent. We
took municipal and town administration boundaries into
consideration except in the case of the City of Zagreb where the
voting body is some 230 thousand voters higher than the average
electoral unit.
The Opposition was mostly concerned with this particular
subdivision of Zagreb into three electoral units as well as the
division of another five counties into various electoral units.
What do rural regions have in common with urban centres such as Novi
Zagreb, opposition MP's asked, noting several other examples which
drew to the conclusion of creating an unusual whole of "shock
absorbing electoral results".
(hina) jn sp