Voting has begun in the Croatian parliamentary elections.
At 7 am on Sunday, polling station have opened where voters will decide the new composition of the Croatian Parliament. They will elect 151 members of parliament, with 140 members in ten constituencies in Croatia, three members elected by Croatian nationals living abroad, and eight members elected by the national minorities. At the polling stations in Croatia and 48 countries around the world, 3.8 million voters have a right to cast their ballots. Almost 7,000 polling stations in Croatia will close at 7 pm, reports Vecernji List on November 8, 2015.
“All polling stations for the elections for the Croatian Parliament, both in Croatia and abroad, have been opened on time, and there are no reports of any problems. Constituency Election Commissions have confirmed to us that everything is as expected”, Ana Lovrin, vice-chairwomen of the State Election Commission said.
Polling stations in numerous European countries have also opened on time. The largest number of polling station are opened in Bosnia and Herzegovina (33) and in Germany (18). Due to time zone differences, in some non-European countries the voting has already finished. For example, at 9 am three polling stations in Australia, in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney, have closed.
Vesna Fabijančić Križanić, vice-charwomen of the State Election Commission, yesterday confirmed that the Commission had received a complaint from one polling station in the Dubrovnik area that a ballot box had been closed earlier than permitted without the presence of all members of the local election committee. “We have already reacted, the constituency election commission has given them a new box that will be closed, as required, on Sunday morning, before the start of voting”, Fabijančić Križanić said yesterday.
The first election results will be published by the State Election Commission at about 10 pm, by which time about 15 percent of polling stations will be processed.
These are the eighth parliamentary elections in Croatia’s democratic history. There are more than 2,300 candidates on 166 lists. The greatest number of candidate lists has been filed in the first constituency (19). The youngest candidate is 18, while the oldest is 95 years old. The elections will be monitored by more than 13,000 observers.
President of the State Election Commission Branko Hrvatin called on voters to vote for the Croatian Parliament and told them “to vote, it is not only your right, but also a shared obligation”. In democratically conducted elections, every vote is equally important and valuable, every voice is and will be embedded in the foundations of the development of Croatian society, Hrvatin said.
