The traditional protest against politicians in the form of spoiled ballot papers throws up some amusing examples in Croatia.
Although Croatian politicians like to say that elections are a festival of democracy, during every election there are some voters who do not consider them serious enough to give them their votes, but rather decide to send their message in a somewhat different way, reports Index.hr on November 9, 2015.
Some ballots regularly finish in the category of “invalid”, because voters decide to use them to demonstrate to politicians what they really think of them. Even though most people believe that it is a waste of opportunity for the voters not to exercise their right to vote and influence the way their country is run, some voters are obviously of a different opinion.
Some of them decided to write in the names of their “candidates”, real or imagined, which they think would do the job of member of parliament better than any of the professional politicians. For example, one voter yesterday gave his “vote” to Rada Vasić, who is a housemate in current version of regional Big Brother reality show. Another expressed his support for TV anchor and journalist Mislav Bago. “In all the political and animal kingdom, there is only one Mislav Bago! He should be the prime minister!!!” Some wrote candidate names like Angela Merkel or Kim Jong-un, while one wrote “If voting could change anything, it would be illegal”.
In every election, there are between 1 and 2 percent of invalid ballots. Here are some of them from yesterday’s elections:
