Croatia’s early parliamentary elections 2024: ODIHR election assessment mission final report

Croatia’s 2024 early parliamentary elections were competitive, offering voters a broad range of political choices. The legal framework generally provided a sound basis for holding democratic elections, and the election administration enjoyed full confidence in managing all stages of the process.

While the media landscape is diverse, concerns remain about the concentration of media ownership and the political affiliation of many media outlets, including the public broadcaster, as well as the high volume of pending litigation against journalists.

These are some of the main conclusions from the final report on the April elections published today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

The report offers 26 recommendations to improve the election process and support efforts to bring it further in line with the commitments made by all OSCE states, as well as other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.

Key recommendations include:

• Aligning the limits of multi-member constituencies with administrative and geographical boundaries.

• Guaranteeing universal and equal suffrage by establishing clear and objective legal criteria along with a transparent procedure for voter registration.

• Introducing detailed rules regulating campaign? loans, including provisions on their disclosure and reporting.

• Safeguarding the editorial independence of the public broadcaster by ensuring appointments of its management and oversight bodies maintain their independence, impartiality, and professionalism.

• Waiving the requirement for voters to register as members of national minorities.

ODIHR deployed an Election Assessment Mission on 5 April 2024, which remained in the country until 22 April.

All 57 participating States across the OSCE region have formally committed to following up promptly on ODIHR’s election assessments and recommendations. ODIHR’s electoral recommendations database tracks the implementation of previous recommendations across the OSCE region.