ZAGREB, 25 Aug, 2021 - The deadlines for the 3 October additional elections for representatives of ethnic minorities in councils in 16 cities and 55 municipalities and in 11 county assemblies started running on Wednesday, the State Election Commission (DIP) said today.

Slates with candidates running in those polls should be submitted to DIP until the midnight on 7 September, and can be proposed by political parties and by groups of citizens who want to be represented by independent candidates.

The State Election Commission calls for respecting gender balance which means at least 40% of candidates on a slate should be from one gender. Otherwise, the slates can be fined between 20,000-40,000 kuna.

Additional elections for minority representatives have been called for the units of local authorities in which the required representatives of the ethnic minority concerned was not achieved during the local elections in May.

Thus, a total of 74 seats designated for ethnic Serbs, 11 for ethnic Roma representatives, four for ethnic Italians and three for ethnic Hungarians and Bosniaks each as well as a seat designated for ethnic Ukrainians' representative remained vacant after the local elections.

 Also, Croatians who a smaller ethnic group in the municipalities of Borovo, Trpinja and Jagodnjak will elect their representatives for those local municipal councils on 3 October.

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ZAGREB, 4 June 2021 - Both the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) have lodged objections regarding the ballot counting in the 30 May election for Istrian county prefect and are now waiting for the response from the State Election Commission (DIP), Jutarnji List daily said on Friday.

According to the results from DIP, SDP candidate Danijel Ferić was defeated  by IDS leader Boris Miletić by a margin of only 54 votes, which prompted the SDP to request a ballot recount at 12 polling stations. The SDP has said that they they have found 41 more ballots in favour of Ferić which were declared invalid. That is why they lodged an objection to DIP to recount all ballots and to give its opinion on the situation.

"The State Election Commission has 48 hours to tell us whether it will take our objection into consideration. (...) We would like to review the election materials in another 29 constituencies. Both us and the IDS are in a hurry to hear whether our objection will be accepted or not. We also want to know who will recount the ballots," said Sanja Radolović of the SDP.

She added that they had found various irregularities and that ballots for Danijel Ferić were added to the pile for Boris Miletić and vice versa.

The IDS said that they had lodged an objection with valid arguments, but they do not want to go into detail because, they say, they do not want to put pressure on electoral bodies, Jutarnji List reported.

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ZAGREB, 13 May, 2021 - The State Election Commission (DIP) on Thursday called on all participants in the 16 May local election, physical and legal persons as well as media outlets, to observe electoral silence that starts at midnight on Saturday and ends on Sunday at 7 pm, when polling stations will be closed.

Violations of the electioneering ban are reported to municipal, town and county electoral commissions and the City of Zagreb Election Commission and they are subject to fines ranging from HRK 3,000 for physical persons to HRK 500,000 for legal persons, including political parties.

Candidates who violate the electioneering ban may be fined HRK 10,000 to 30,000.

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ZAGREB, 22 March, 2021 - The State Election Commission (DIP) on Monday reminded political parties and independent slates to respect the principle of gender equality and balanced representation of men and women on lists of candidates for members of representative bodies of municipalities, towns and counties in May's local elections.

In doing so, they must take care that the representation of one sex on a list is not below 40%, DIP said.

It recalled that respect for the principle of balanced representation of men and women on electoral slates did not affect the validity of those slates and that they would not be rejected if they failed to have a sufficient number of female or male candidates, but that their proposers would be fined.

Under the Gender Equality Act, fines range from HRK 40,000 for a political party or independent slate participating in elections for city councils and county assemblies to HRK 20,000 for elections for municipal councils.

Fewer councillors to be elected in May

The number of deputies in local councils and assemblies to be elected in the May 16 election depends on the number of those local government units' inhabitants and ranges from 7 for municipalities that have up to 1,000 residents, to 47, which is how many deputies will be elected to the Zagreb City Assembly and the assemblies of counties with more than 300,000 residents.

The number of local deputies to be elected in the May 16 election is smaller than four years ago.

In line with changes to the law on local elections, municipalities with up to 1,000 residents elect seven councillors, while under the old law seven councillors were elected by municipalities with up to 500 inhabitants and municipalities with up to 1,000 inhabitants elected nine deputies.

Counties with more than 300,000 residents and the City of Zagreb will each elect to their assemblies 47 councillors and previously they elected 51 deputies.

It is estimated that under the new rules, the number of members of local representative bodies will be around 10% smaller.

To read more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 10 March, 2021 - New Left was late in submitting its financial statement for 2020 due to errors made by persons this parliamentary party authorised to enter the data in the report, the State Election Commission (DIP) said on Wednesday.

DIP thus dismissed the explanation provided by the party about the reasons for its failure to provide the commission with the financial statement on time. On Tuesday afternoon, the New Left party confirmed that it was late in submitting its 2020 financial statement and explained that they missed the deadline due to shortcomings in the electronic system for data entry.

The New Left, which has one lawmaker, was the only parliamentary party to fail to submit its financial statement within the deadline.

The DIP commission recalls that more than 1,300 parties and independent lawmakers and councillors, subject to regular supervision, managed to submit their financial statement by that very same IT system in a timely fashion.

So the problems arose from the mistakes made by the persons authorised by the party to enter the data and not due to any glitches in the IT system, DIP said. 

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 15 January, 2021 - The July 2020 parliamentary election cost HRK 101.5 million (€13.53 million), HRK 8.5 million less than the election held in 2016, shows the final report of the State Election Commission (DIP) on the cost of last year's vote.

The lower election costs are a result of savings made on allowances for the work of election bodies, owing to changes in tax rules.

Material costs, amounting to HRK 22.3 million, were close to two million kuna higher than in 2016, due to measures introduced to prevent the spread of the coronavirus infection.

Explaining why the final report was being published only now, DIP said that it adopts final reports on election costs only after the polling committees of the country's 12 constituencies have covered election costs in their constituencies.

ZAGREB, August 30, 2020 - A report provided by the State Election Commission (DIP) shows that HRK 78.5 million was spent on organising the country's parliamentary elections on 5 July.

However, the incomplete report does not include all the costs incurred during the election process.

The previous parliamentary elections in September 2016 cost slightly over HRK 122 million.

The structure of the costs seems the same in 2020 as four years ago.

For instance, the biggest outlay was for remuneration for polling committee members, HRK 57.9 million on aggregate. Furthermore, material expenses accounted for HRK 20.6 million.

A polling committee member is paid 300 kuna for this job on the election day in Croatia. Chairpersons and deputy chairpersons are paid HRK 400, which was 50 kuna more than four years ago.

Remuneration per committee member for their work aboard is somewhat higher.

There are also outlays for compensation for experts hired for the organisation of the election process.

(€ 1 = HRK 7.5)

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