GONG: Elections Went Fine; Violations of Campaign Silence Noted

GONG

The GONG civic association says that the elections for the Croatian Sabor proceeded in tolerant and democratic atmosphere, on basis of reports of their monitors and anonymous reports by citizens. However, GONG received a number of reports of election violations, especially from members of national minorities and the ballot process in BiH.

The majority of problems related to voters from the national minorities refer to violations of the Criminal Code by a number of local Election Committees, which denied the members of the national minorities the right to vote for the general lists and instructed them to vote for the minority lists.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the biggest problems appeared with huge queues at the ballot stations, as well as the fact that a great number of voters had to wait for the so called blue certificates, proving their voting rights, because of the slow procedure. In general, the voting in the diaspora was marked by problems with voters who didn�t apply for entry into the voter registry on time.

The work and professional standards of the local election committees were marked from bad to excellent, with GONG generally satisfied with the cooperation of the Election Boards, with few exceptions.

Most ballot stations closed their doors on time, with counting of votes proceeding in perfect order.

However, GONG noted numerous violations of campaign silence legislation on the ballot day � from distribution of promotional materials to SMS campaigning. The association has already issued a number of press statements on that problem.

GONG monitored the Elections with a total of 1,500 observers, 117 of them delegated to ballot stations abroad. In addition, there were 65 mobile teams in Croatia and 17 mobile teams in Bosnia and Herzegovina that travelled between ballot stations.

For additional information, visit GONG website.