LJUBLJANA, April 5 (Hina) - A total of 95 percent of Slovene citizens who on Sunday took part in a referendum on granting residence permits to non-Slovenes who 12 years ago, when Slovenia gained independence, were declared foreigners
without the right of residence, voted against the government's proposal to grant 18,305 such citizens residence permits.
LJUBLJANA, April 5 (Hina) - A total of 95 percent of Slovene citizens
who on Sunday took part in a referendum on granting residence permits
to non-Slovenes who 12 years ago, when Slovenia gained independence,
were declared foreigners without the right of residence, voted against
the government's proposal to grant 18,305 such citizens residence
permits.#L#
Opposition leaders Janez Jansa, Andrej Bajuk and Zmago Jelincic said
that the referendum was successful and called on the government to
shelve this issue until the autumn elections, while most ruling
parties - which had called for a boycott of the referendum - claimed
the referendum showed that Slovenes were not xenophobic as only one
third of the electorate took part in the referendum.
According to the Slovene electoral commission, 31.45 percent of the
1.62 million registered voters took part in the referendum. Of that
number, 94.68 voted against the government's proposal to legalise the
residence of non-Slovene citizens and 3.8 percent voted for. Several
thousand ballots were declared invalid.
(Hina) rml