ELECTIONS IN CROATIA: A SYMPTOMATIC CASE OR AN ANOMALY?
ELECTIONS IN CROATIA: A SYMPTOMATIC CASE OR AN ANOMALY?

Author(s): Srđan Vrcan
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Governance, Environmental and Energy policy, Government/Political systems
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: Elections; manipulation; electoral engineering; ethnocentrism; authoritarianism
Summary/Abstract: Elections in Croatia held in the last decade of the twentieth century were marked by constant changes in electoral legislature and procedure. Electoral engineering of the then ruling HDZ, headed by President Tuđman, was highly sophisticated and efficient, to a degree that no other country in the so-called transition societies could match, except perhaps Russia. This engineering was manifested by changes in the electoral law, electoral supervising bodies, the threshold of representation (the prohibitive clause), the electoral geography, the electoral arithmetic, the national minorities’ rights of representation, and by the introduction of mandatory confirmation of the nomination of the President of a county by the President of the Republic. All these changes were intentionally biased in favour of the HDZ and its political strategy based on ethnocentric authoritarianism. Another reason why the elections can be assessed as free - yet not fair and righteous - is because of a significant amount of violence present during the course of elections.

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