VOTER LISTS FOR DANUBE REGION TO BE COMPLETED BY MARCH 25

ZAGREB, March 14 (Hina) - Croatian government and parliament officials convened in Zagreb on Friday under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Kostovic to discuss the conduct of elections in the UN-administered Danube region of eastern Croatia. Administration Minister Davorin Mlakar said that voter lists would be finalized after the completion of registration by March 25. Mlakar said that there would be three types of voter lists. The first list would include all the residents of the region under the 1991 population census. The second would cover voters who had arrived there after 1991 and before January 15, 1996. The voters from that list would be able to vote for representative bodies of local government in the region or for representative bodies in the areas where they resided in 1991. The third list would include all Croatian displaced people from the region who had registered with the Government Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees. They would be allowed to vote in their current places of residence for local government bodies in the Danube region. Mlakar also explained some provisions of the code of conduct during the elections passed by UN Transitional Administrator Jacques Klein. The code, based on Croatian regulations, the Erdut agreement and UN Security Council resolutions, provides norms which will be binding on all participants in the elections and media. Mlakar said that a special Appeals Commission would be supervising the whole process. Mlakar said that the UN Transitional Administration (UNTAES) was mandated to ensure the holding of elections at local level but not at national level so that the extension of a deadline for completing nomination procedure for elections to the House of Counties had actually been a concession by the Croatian government. In response to questions by exiled mayors from the UN- administered region, Kostovic said that changes to the territorial makeup, decided by Klein, could only be temporary because only the Croatian parliament could decide about that. Responding to a journalist's question after the meeting, Mlakar said that the recently established regional Independent Democratic Serb Party still had not applied to the Administration Ministry for registration. (hina) vm mm 142019 MET mar 97