ZAGREB, Sept 20 (Hina) - "Voice 99 - Civil Coalition for Free and Fair Elections" and the Croatian Legal Centre (HPC) on Monday said the election bill proposed by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was unacceptable because it
contained irregularities in defining the principles expressed by an expert commission. The bill must define in detail the rules of independent observation and not leave this up to the directives set by the state election commission, a representative of Voice 99, Darko Jurisic told journalists at a press conference in Zagreb on Monday. Jurisic believes the existing bill leaves too many things unsaid and too many legal insecurities to enable free and fair elections. He further considers that the law should prevent transfers of monies from public funds to election campaigns for political parties, which was the practise of the HDZ, Voice 99 and HPC claim. The two non-government or
ZAGREB, Sept 20 (Hina) - "Voice 99 - Civil Coalition for Free and
Fair Elections" and the Croatian Legal Centre (HPC) on Monday said
the election bill proposed by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ) was unacceptable because it contained irregularities in
defining the principles expressed by an expert commission.
The bill must define in detail the rules of independent observation
and not leave this up to the directives set by the state election
commission, a representative of Voice 99, Darko Jurisic told
journalists at a press conference in Zagreb on Monday.
Jurisic believes the existing bill leaves too many things unsaid
and too many legal insecurities to enable free and fair elections.
He further considers that the law should prevent transfers of
monies from public funds to election campaigns for political
parties, which was the practise of the HDZ, Voice 99 and HPC claim.
The two non-government organisations oppose special electoral
units for citizens who are not resident in Croatia.
Refugees who have Croatian citizenship should have the right to
vote under the same conditions as other Croatian citizens, which
also refers to Serb refugees, Voice 99 and HPC believe.
Voice 99 and HPC consider that the Serb minority in Croatia should
have a recognised level of participation in mandates on par to the
number of population.
The two organisations are in favour of introducing a female quota of
40 per cent representation for women on all candidate listings in
all electoral units. They also support an initiative by 'Forum 21',
an association of independent electronic media journalists, for
specified sanctions in cases of misuse of media outlets for
election campaigning.
(hina) sp/ha jn