ZAGREB, August 30, 2018 - Public Administration Minister Lovro Kuščević said on Thursday that representatives of civil initiatives would not be allowed to monitor the checking of signatures collected for referendum petitions but that a contract would be signed with a company to do it.
"We in the parliament have decided to be in charge of that. It is a procedure that must be transparent. A firm has submitted an offer to do it for us and we are about to sign a contract," said Kuščević.
He said that the signature checking procedure must be organised in such a way to determine the authenticity of every signature. "We don't want to contaminate the process with a single mistake," he said.
Asked if the presence of civil initiatives' observers at signature checking would be allowed, he said, "Of course not".
"You see, there are four million Croats who would want to monitor the process and there are the 400,000 who want to see the referendum pass," he stressed.
Asked to comment on remarks by the interested civil initiatives that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leadership would send its representatives to observe the party's elections in Lika-Senj County and that those were double standards, Kuščević said: "You'll see, once we sign the contract for that job, it will be maximally transparent, with safe rooms and video surveillance, and with the use of mobile phones prohibited. Any abuse is out of the question."
He added that the process of contract signing with the said company would take about a month.
The "People Decide" civil initiative has asked on several occasions that it be allowed to monitor the checking of signatures collected in a campaign seeking a referendum on changes to the election system and that the job of checking the signatures be entrusted to the Central Election Commission.
