According to information available to the State Election Commission (SEC), Saturday, ahead of Sunday's second round of local elections, is going relatively peacefully, with only minor reports of violations of the election silence that has been in effect since midnight.
"It's relatively quiet here," says SEC member and spokesperson Slaven Hojski, stating that SEC has only received four reports of silence being violated on social media.
"The rest is more or less peaceful," Hojski points out, but he also notes that this does not mean that it is like that everywhere, or at lower levels.
Namely, the second round of elections, in which 12 county prefects, mayors of Zagreb and 46 other cities and mayors of 62 municipalities will be elected, will be held in 405 municipalities and cities that are 'covered' by their election commissions that report violations of electoral silence.
The ban on election campaigning, or election silence, lasts until Sunday at 19 p.m., and until then, candidates may not publicly present their election programs, give statements and interviews, voters may not be persuaded to vote for a particular candidate, and no estimates of election results may be published.
For those who decide to act differently, fines are prescribed, ranging from 398 euros for a natural person to 66,361 euros for a legal entity, such as a political party, that violates the silence. The responsible person in the legal entity and candidates can be fined from 1327 to 3981 euros. Fines are imposed by misdemeanor courts.
The SEC member and spokesperson also emphasizes that there are no reports of problems with the preparation of the 4.980 polling stations that will be open from 7 a.m. to 19 p.m. on Sunday.
"No one has reported any problems, so it seems to me that everything is proceeding as usual," said Hojski.
Photo: HINA/KUZO; Zvonimir Kuhtić
