ZAGREB, March 28 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's committee on human rights and the rights of national minorities did not give the green light on Friday to amendments to the Election Law as moved by the committee on the
Constitution.
ZAGREB, March 28 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's committee on
human rights and the rights of national minorities did not give the
green light on Friday to amendments to the Election Law as moved by
the committee on the Constitution. #L#
The committee turned down an amendment under which national
minorities would have the dual voting right. Only committee members
who represent minorities voted for the proposal, while MPs of the
Social Democrats (SDP) and Libra were against. Zdenka Babic-
Petricevic of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) abstained.
The minorities' bench will nevertheless put the amendment to
parliament.
Milan Djukic said he would request that Serbs, who now have one MP,
have three fixed seats in parliament in the future.
Zdenka Cuhnil, who represents the Czech and Slovak minorities, is
against having Czechs and Slovaks elect their MP together with the
Romany and Russian minorities. It would deprive these minorities of
their acquired rights as until now only ethnic Czechs and Slovaks
elected a joint representative, she said.
HDZ's Babic-Petricevic said her party and parliament's immigration
committee would move six fixed seats in the Sabor for Croatian
emigrants. They would get more seats corresponding to the turnout,
she said.
Speaking of SDP's proposal to take diaspora representatives off
party lists and bind the right to vote to the place of residence,
Babic-Petricevic said it could have been put forward only by "a
party lacking national awareness like the SDP".
(hina) ha sb