ZAGREB, March 22, 2019 – After the Croatian parliament spent the whole night on Thursday debating the MOST party’s amendments to the bill on the financing of political activities, election campaigning and referendums, activists of the GONG non-governmental organisation on Friday called on lawmakers not to adopt the bill, saying that it was harmful.
GONG member Goran Čular told reporters outside the parliament that the bill was harmful in terms of its content and that it was also harmful for political culture in Croatia.
He underlined that so far political parties in Croatia had complied with the good practice set by the Venice Commission not to change election legislation just before elections.
“In Europe such things are done relatively rarely. The bill on the financing of political activities contains some provisions whose impact on the election process is greater than the impact of the election law itself,” said Čular.
Apart from the fact that it is harmful for political culture, the bill has a harmful content because it takes us back to the time of former Prime Minuster Ivo Sanader, said Čular. “It is being adopted just before European elections so some very important provisions will already be in force in those elections. I’m talking primarily about the provision that increases the maximum funding of election campaigning from 1.5 million kuna to 4 million per slate,” said Čular.
He recalled that in 2011 the amount legal and physical persons could donate to political parties was limited to 30,000 kuna for physical persons and 200,000 kuna for legal persons.
The current bill distinguishes between the financing of regular activities from the financing of party campaigns and thus, depending on the number of elections in a year, increases donations to political parties several times.
“In 2019, when elections for the European Parliament and presidential elections will be held, you will be able to make a donation of 30,000 kuna or of 200,000 kuna, if you are a company, for no more than three times,” said Čular.
GONG executive director Jelena Berković said that it was contentious that the bill, which also concerns the financing of referendums and referendum initiatives by civil society groups, was being adopted without a new law on referendums having been adopted.
She also noted that the current bill did not contain a provision on the need to specify payments made by political parties to their candidates for electioneering purposes.
Berković claimed that that provision did exist in the version of the bill that was put to public consultation but that in the first reading it was deleted without any explanation.
Representatives of the Amsterdam Coalition said on Friday that the ruling HDZ party and its coalition partners wanted to buy European elections with the proposed bill on the financing of political activities which was currently being discussed by the parliament, and that therefore they demanded that the law should go into force on June 1 and not on the day before the day when elections for the European Parliament would be called.
Anka Mrak Taritaš, leader of the GLAS party, which is part of the Amsterdam Coalition, told a news conference in the parliament that the bill on the financing of political activities contained numerous improvements in relation to the existing law but also entirely unacceptable elements.
“The crucial thing is the day of the entry into force of the law, which bears witness to the thuggery of the HDZ, the HNS and Milan Bandić’s parliamentary group because today is March 22 and the president of the republic can call elections for the European Parliament on March 25 at the latest. That means that the law will go into force on the day before the day when the elections are called,” said Mrak Taritaš.
Election rules are not changed in an election year, what the HDZ, the HNS and Bandić are doing is unfair to the political system and political parties and also bears witness to their disrespect of the European Parliament, she said.
The Amsterdam Coalition has only one amendment to the bill on the financing of political activities – that it should go into force on June 1. By adopting that amendment, the ruling majority will show that there is a minimum of democracy in Croatia, the GLAS leader said.
Krešo Beljak, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), also a member of the Amsterdam Coalition, said that election campaigns in 2019 were not like campaigns of 15 years ago because a larger number of supporters could be reached today for much less money, primarily through campaigning on social networks.
“It is absolutely unnecessary for any party, including even the HDZ and Bandić, to spend that much money on an election campaign,” said Beljak.
More news on the elections in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
