ZAGREB, June 27, 2020 – The Bridge party said on Saturday the government, having organised an early parliamentary election, should instruct citizens on how it would be held and under which coronavirus protection measures.
Marija Selak Raspudic told reporters the election was seven days away and that citizens still did not know how to vote safely given “the epidemiological situation and the fact that Croatia, primarily because of the prime minister, has become anything but a safe country.”
She said it was necessary to make sure that polling committee members and observers would come to the polling stations, otherwise, the election risked being “illegal.” She also wondered how many diaspora voters would be prevented from voting and if, because of that, the election might be declared unconstitutional.
Asked if Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic should be self-isolating after a recent tennis tournament in Zadar, where an outbreak of coronavirus occurred, Nino Raspudic said it was very clear that one set of rules applied to the prime minister and another to the rest of the population.
He said the decision to hold the election early had been rushed to use the then popularity of the coronavirus crisis management team for political gain. “Now we see how many of the team’s members are on HDZ slates. It’s difficult to distinguish between the HDZ’s election campaign and the team’s press releases.”
