Croatia: Voters Have Until 18 December 2024 to Register to Vote at Presidential Elections

As many as thirteen hopefuls for the Presidency of the Republic of Croatia are now off and running to collect 10,000 signatures until 10th December in order to qualify as candidate at the imminent presidential elections coming up a couple of days ahead of New Year’s Eve!   On 21 November 2024, the Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted the Decision on the announcement of elections for the President of the Republic of Croatia.

The elections will take place on Sunday 29 December 2024. What a cruel deal, really.  Most people are on some holiday or family reunion abroad or within Croatia between Christmas and New Year and they are served with a task of having to register for absentee voting and all the hurdles that go with that, such as locating the nearest polling place or if at all it will be possible to get to it on election day!  

The incumbent President Zoran Milanovic is running for another presidential term. The other hopefuls are: Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ candidate Dragan Primorac, “Možemo” party’s Ivana Kekin, Independent Marija Selak Raspudic, Most’s candidate Miro Bulj, lawyer and historian Tomislav Jonjic, Croatian Autochthonous Party of Rights Drazen Keleminec, Law and Justice party’s Mislav Kolakusic, entrepreneur Niko Tokic Kartelo, former journalist Anton Filic, Domino party’s Branka Lozo, independent Aurora Weiss, and Determination and Justice party (OIP) Karolina Vidović Krišto.

So, will there be too many candidates if all thirteen collect 10,000 or more signatures of support for their candidacy? Many will say and believe that too many candidates actually take votes away from “good ones” but is that what a modern heterogenous democracy says about that?

It in an accepted fact that more diverse communities need a more diverse range of candidates to choose from. If diversity of Croatian community is measured by religious denomination, ethnicity or history then of course it is not a diverse community in measures of majorities. But when we look at the ideological fall-out from seceding from communist Yugoslavia in 1991 and ideological new developments as well as stubborn maintenance of old ones then Croatia seems a very diverse community.  Hence, many would argue that if you have a democracy in an ideologically heterogeneous population, you’re going to need to have lots of candidates representing lots of different ideologies, or you won’t have a representative democracy. That does not mean that representatives of each ideology must win in elections, it is important that they compete. Number of winners is always limited and that too is democracy.

With media polls on the popularity of candidates churning out different results of voter preferences day after day, today “you” are on top and tomorrow in the middle sort of thing, it’s not difficult to gather that the large number of possible candidates matters much at this point.  The dropping out of current hopefuls will come only if they do not succeed collecting enough signatures to cross the line of hope to reality. One would like to think that some dropping out would come via amalgamation of candidates with similar ideology into one election camp to, at least, protect political career opportunities, or simply to preserve a bit of self-respect. But the latter seems sadly unlikely as every one of the 13 hopefuls thinks he/she is the best, “the bee’s knees” for Croatia!  

So while the Croatian public space decides how many candidates will actually make it to the ballot paper please, if you wish for your vote to count on 29 December 2024 this official information from authorities in Croatia released on 27 November 2024 is for you.

 In order to be eligible to vote in this round of Presidential elections voters may carry out no later than 18 December 2024 the following actions:

1. Temporary entry of their name (privremeni upis) in the electoral roll outside the place of residence (voter who has a permanent residence in the Republic of Croatia and wishes to vote outside the place of residence in the Republic of Croatia) – i.e. register for absentee vote within Croatia. (Form below may be printed and forwarded as instructed to nearest appropriate Croatian authority.)
2. Register in advance (prethodnu registraciju) to vote at polling station outside of Croatia if your place of permanent residence is in the Republic of Croatia. I.e., if you possess a Croatian Identity Card that has a Croatian address as your residence, but you live or spend most of your time living abroad, outside Croatia. (Form as above under 1).
3. Lodge and active registration (aktivnu registraciju) if you do not have a permanent residence in the Republic of Croatia and wish to vote abroad or in the Republic of Croatia. You must attach your photo ID with this application, e.g. photo of Passport or photo driver’s licence etc. (Photo of Form below may be printed, filled in and together with photo ID emailed to your nearest Consulate or Embassy or Republic of Croatia or to competent authority in Croatia if you are, for instance, holidaying in Croatia during elections).
4. Have issued certificate for voting outside your place of residence, the so-called yellow certificate, if you reside in the Republic of Croatia and want to vote outside your place of residence in the Republic of Croatia or abroad but are not sure where you will be on the day of the elections).
5. Given that there is a real possibility of the Second Round of Voting, most likely on 12 January 2025 if no candidate receives enough votes to pass in First Round of voting, then voters submitting the Active Registration to vote may on the same Form choose to register for both First and Second Rounds of voting.
6. To reiterate: Voters (citizens of Republic of Croatia of 18 years and above) who do not have an identity card issued in Croatia with a permanent address outside the Republic of Croatia must apply for active registration in order to vote abroad or in the Republic of Croatia. Voters who do posses an identity card issued in Croatia will be automatically included in the electoral roll and need tot register in advance to vote like those who do not have the identity card.
7. Voters who have a Croatian identity Card permanent residence address in the Republic of Croatia on it and wish to vote abroad must submit a “prethodna registracija”/ registration in advance form/ form to vote outside of their place of residence as indicated on their identity card. So, for example, you hold a Croatian identity Card and on that card your address is in Spit, Zagreb or anywhere in Croatia and you will be outside of Croatia, in Canada, Australia etc where you usually live, you must register in advance to be able to vote outside of Croatia.
8. Wherever you are in the world and are eligible to vote in Croatian elections – please vote! It is crucial Croatia makes a decisive step forward in ideology that rests on Homeland War values. This can only be achieved by participating in democratic elections. Ina Vukic