ZAGREB, May 7, 2018 – The goal of “The People Decide” referendum is to change the current political system, to prevent political bargaining and corruption between political parties and to strengthen voters’ decision making in Croatia, organisers of the signature collection for the referendum said on Monday.
They were responding to Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković’s statement earlier today that the intention of the referendum initiative was to change the election law in order to weaken the political system and that, instead, it was necessary to strengthen and democratise the political parties and education.
“There is no reason to fear us citizens. We can read. And distinguish starlets and party yes-men from competent and honest politicians. We want… the competent and the honest to represent our and not your interests in the next parliament,” Marija Burazer of the citizens’ initiative “The People Decide” told Jandroković in a press release.
If the two strongest parties, the ruling HDZ and the opposition SDP, cared about democracy and representing all citizens, they would have changed the election system so that voters, and not party leaders, could decide who will enter parliament, so that more citizens could vote, so that the HDZ and the SDP could not, through pre-election coalitions, bring into parliament parties with 1% support, so that constituencies matched county borders and so that every vote counted equally, Burazer said.
If the HDZ and the SDP wanted a just election system, they would have ensured ethnic minority protection such as it is in other EU countries in order to prevent horse-trading with minority MPs in order to form a majority, she added.
