ZAGREB, January 7, 2020 – Citizens are spending less and less time visiting MPs’ personal websites, and only seven out of 151 MPs had around a thousand hits in 2019, including Sonja Čikotić of MOST, data on the website of the Croatian Parliament show.
Among the above-mentioned group are five HDZ MPs: Branko Bačić, Tomislav Sokol, Marijan Kustić, Stevo Culej and Josip Đakić. They are joined by Ivan Pernar (SIP).
In comparison to previous years, a thousand hits is a rather modest number.
For example, in the first half of 2018, when the favourites were Goran Aleksić (SNAGA), independent Marko Vučetić and Culej, their sites had nearly 4,500, 4,000 and 3,000 hits respectively.
Miljan Brkić’s (HDZ) website had nearly 10,700 hits in the first half of 2016, while Miro Bulj’s (MOST) had 7,600. Goran Marić’s (HDZ) website had the most hits in 2015 and 2014.
The website of each MP contains merely his or her photo, biography and a list of committees the MP is a member of.
Parliament says that MPs’ websites popularity is decreasing “in favour of the increasing number of visits for deputy clubs, visits to MPs’ websites according to party affiliation and according to national minorities representation.”
As in previous years, parties with the most hits are the HDZ (3,916), MOST (2,035), the SDP (1,785) and Bandić Milan 365 (1,757).
In comparison with the previous period, citizens are increasingly looking up MPs’ expenses (1,882).
They are also interested in calls for tenders (6,727), and the employment section, which had more than 3,300 hits even though there have been no vacancies since 2017.
The Parliament’s website had the highest number of visitors in a single day (more than 4,320) on 16 January 2019, when PM Andrej Plenković submitted a report on the European Council meetings.
Slightly fewer visitors accessed the site on 14 February when 16 opposition MPs requested an interpellation on the work of the Government regarding the purchase of fighter jets.
The highest number of visitors (78.4%) are from Croatia, followed by those from the US and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Parliament’s website had 3,136,041 hits in 2019.
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