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Croatia Vote Produces Close Result

25 11 2007  Zagreb _ Croatia’s centre-right governing party looks set to remain the largest force in parliament, but with a much-reduced majority - according to initial results coming in after Sunday’s elections.

Preliminary results announced by the State Election Commission shortly after 2300 hours (2200 Greenwich Mean Time), with about 40 per cent of votes counted, indicated that Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, was heading for 60 seats, down six on its previous strength in parliament.

The opposition Social Democrats, SDP, were expected to increase their presence by over 20 seats to 57 in the 152-strong assembly.

Sunday’s elections produced the closest results since multi-party voting was restored in Croatia in 1990.

Initial exit polls gave conflicting projections about the voting results, one putting the SDP ahead of the HDZ.

At one point the Electoral Commission's web site crashed due to the amount of traffic from people trying to log on.

Over four million Croats were entitled to vote, with about 10 per cent of the electorate made up of people living outside the country, a substantial part of them ethnic Croats in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On Saturday the non-governmental electoral watchdog Citizens Organized to Monitor Voting, GONG, registered numerous calls from people about violations of the pre-election ban on publicity, not only by political parties but also by the Croatian Post Office because party commercials could be seen at its branches across the country on the day of electoral silence.

In many locations, posters were put up and voters received text messages urging them to vote for specific parties.

Party activists posted leaflets and other advertising material in post boxes.

There were no reports of any major irregularities on election day.