ZAGREB, October 17, 2018 – Public Administration Minister Lovro Kuščević said on Wednesday that none of the two referendum initiatives managed to collect the required number of signatures for the petitions for their referenda: one on changing the election legislation and the second on the abrogation of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.
Minister Kuščević said at a government meeting that The People Decide civil initiative that wanted a referendum on two questions collected 412,325 signatures for the petition for a referendum on electoral changes, and 371,450 were valid whereas 40,875 were invalid.
They collected 407,835 signatures for a referendum question that would propose stripping national minority representatives of the right to decide on government formation and the state budget, and 367,169 were valid and 40,666 were invalid, according to Kuščević.
The Truth about the Istanbul Convention civil initiative submitted 390,916 signatures for their referendum petition and 345,942 were valid and 44,974 invalid.
Those initiatives collected the signatures in the period from 13 to 27 May.
On 2 August, the government instructed the Public Administration Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior to verify the number and authenticity of signatures collected by the Truth about the Istanbul Convention initiative and The People Decide initiative and to check if the signatures for the petition against the Convention were collected in line with the law.
The Public Administration Ministry tasked APIS IT to verify the collected signatures. This company provides strategic, professional and implementation services to public and government sector organisations in Croatia in the planning, development, support and maintenance of their information systems.
In the meantime, the civil initiative The People Decide has lodged a complaint with the Constitutional Court, asking it to rescind a decision by parliament, the government and the Public Administration Ministry to check the number and authenticity of signatures for a referendum to change the electoral system.
