Referendum Initiative to Change Way Croatia Votes Falls Over
- by croatiaweek
- in Latest
The ‘U ime obitelji’ (In the name of the family) association has failed to gather enough signatures to force a referendum to change the way Croatians vote in the future…
The Constitutional Court in Croatia has ruled that there will be no referendum because the initiators were nearly 20,000 signatures short of what was required. U ime obitelji, led by Željka Markić, were seeking to change the way Members of Parliament are voted in, and wanted to introduce a ‘preferential voting system’ where party lists have less influence on the candidates elected. The system is one used in a number of European countries such as Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Slovakia, and Belgium.
In its ruling the court said that the organisation were required to gather 405,000 signatures (10% of registered voters with an address in Croatia). The organisation submitted 386,649 signatures.
