ZAGREB, October 11, 2018 – The Jutarnji List daily reported on Wednesday evening that the civil initiatives “The People Decide” and “The Truth About the Istanbul Convention” had failed to collect the sufficient number of signatures to call state referendums.
According to Jutarnji List’s exclusive report, the two initiatives did not collect enough signatures for three referendum questions on revoking the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence and on changing the election legislation.
According to Jutarnji List, APIS IT, which provides strategic, professional and implementation services to the public and government sector and which was in charge of checking the signatures collected, discovered numerous irregularities and concluded that neither civil initiative had the necessary 374,740 valid signatures.
Reacting to the news released by Jutarnji List, MP Nikola Grmoja of the opposition MOST party occupied the floor in Parliament on Wednesday evening as a sign of protest. “Given that the entire process of signature counting has been compromised from the very start and that the intention of Public Administration Minister Lovro Kuščević and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković is clear, namely that there should be no referendum, I will, as a sign off protest, occupy this floor and I do not plan on moving,” Grmoja said.
He called on the Croatian people to react, adding that the first protest will be held in Vukovar on Sunday.
