IZBORI U HRVATSKOJ DEVEDESETIH: SIMPTOMATIČAN SLUČAJ ILI ANOMALIJA?
ELECTIONS IN CROATIA IN THE 1990s: A SYMPTOMATIC CASE OR AN ANOMALY?

Author(s): Srđan Vrcan
Subject(s): Politics, Political history, Government/Political systems
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: Elections; manipulation; elective engineering; ethnocentrism; authoritarianism
Summary/Abstract: Elections in Croatia in the 1990s were marked by constant changes in electoral legislation and procedure. The electoral engineering of the then ruling HDZ party headed by President Tuđman was highly competent and very effective, and its innovation cannot be compared with engineering in any other so-called transition country with the exception of Russia. This engineering was manifested in changes to the electoral law, bodies for the implementation and supervision of elections, the electoral threshold (prohibitory clauses), electoral geography, electoral arithmetic, the right of national minorities to representation, and in the introduction of confirmation of the election of prefects by the President of the Republic. All these changes were consciously biased in favor of the HDZ and its political strategy based on ethnocentric authoritarianism. The elections can be assessed as free, but not as fair and honorable, which is also contributed to by the prominent role of violence in the elections.

• Details
• Contents