Stručni rad
The Electoral System and Results of the Local Elections held on 20 May 2001
Jasna Omejec
; Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
In the period from 1992 to 2001, the electoral System for members of
the representative bodies of counties, towns and municipalities in
the Republic of Croatia was parallel or mixed proportional-majority. By the adoption of the new law on local elections in 2001, this system has been changed into proportional, and based on the closed
lists o f political party candidates or lists of independent candidates.
On 20 May 2001, general local elections were held in the Republic
o f Croatia. The results o f these elections for members of each of 20
county assemblies and for the City Assembly of the City of Zagreb,
as well as for councillors in 122 town councils and 423 municipal
councils, are presented in this article. After entering into the postelectoral coalition, executive bodies hâve also been formed, on that
basis, in counties (county governors and members o f county executive boards have been elected), in towns (mayors and members of
town executive boards have been elected) and in municipalities (municipal head executives and members o f municipal executive boards have been elected). The analysis has been carried out according to the party membership of individual elected county governors, mayors and municipal head executives. In the end, there is a presentation of those towns and municipalities in which special early elections were held until 28 February 2002, as well as the reasons why they were called.
Analysing general effects of the proportional electoral System applied
at the élections for the représentative bodies o f ail local units in
Croatia held on 30 May 2001, the author concludes that this System
strongly emphasizes “partisanship” even in the smallest municipalities, which are strained by conflicts among political parties, continuous problems in functioning (as a rule, created before the elections, and intensified after the elections) of the party coalitions in local representative bodies, their constant crises, and consequently the uncertain and unstable position of the mayor/the municipal head executive and the town/municipal executive board.
The marked “partisan-political” character of the local elections
mainly derives from the fact that the local elections in Croatia are
mostly considered only as an “accessory" to national élections. Voting
for the members o f local représentative bodies in their county, town
or municipality, the electors principally express their attitude towards
thè party policies on the national level. Such attitude, in principle,
is not influenced by concrete politicai events and concrete party
personnel in their local surroundings.
Therefore, the author considers that it is not possible to carry out the
process o f complete redirection o f the development o f local self
government in Croatia towards “non-partisan”, “non-political”
communal administration, because this process must be preceded by
extensive, complete and full decentralization of public administration
in Croatia, which is a long-lasting and slow process, still at the
very beginning in Croatia.
Finally, the author concludes that the adequacy of the existing
proportional System with the closed lists o f candidates for the élection
of members of local representative bodies should be seriously reexamined, suggesting that the next local elections in the Republic of
Croatia should be personalized.
Ključne riječi
local elections; lists of candidates; independent lists; political parties; coalitions; party membership of elected candidates; party membership of county governors, mayors; municipal head executives
Hrčak ID:
197650
URI
Datum izdavanja:
9.4.2002.
Posjeta: 1.700 *