Some 4.08 million voters will go to a total of 6,591 polling stations to elect county prefects, mayors of cities, town and municipalities and local law-making bodies.
Elected will be a total of 866 members sitting on county assemblies, 51 members of the assembly of the city of Zagreb as well as 2,206 members of city and town councils and 5,343 councillors in municipalities.
A total of 46,324 candidates on 2,982 lists are running in the election for 21 county assemblies, the assembly of the City of Zagreb, 126 city and town councils and 427 municipal councils.
They will be elected by proportional representation.
For the first time, 429 municipal mayors, 127 city mayors, 21 county prefects and their deputies will be chosen in direct elections.
A total of 1970 candidates are running in the elections for those seats of heads of municipalities, towns, cities and counties.
The winner of a mayoral seat of a prefect seat has to secure 50 percent of votes in the first round. In case no candidate running for those offices wins a majority, the first two candidates will compete in a runoff two weeks after the first round of voting.
Polling stations will open at 7am and close 7 pm Sunday.
Exit polling will be conducted, too.
The Croatian state Election Commission will report about turnouts by 11 am and 4 pm.
The nongovernmental election monitoring association GONG will monitor the voting with 700 observers and 45 mobile teams.
GONG said that the number of its observers would not be as high as at the 2005 local elections, monitored by 1,000 observers and 105 mobile teams, adding that it would do its best to cover as many polling stations as possible.
On the election day, GONG will issue three statements - at 1100 and 1600 hours and after the closing of election polls.
Apart from GONG observers, the elections will also be monitored by observers representing political parties.