National Minorities in Croatia – Step Forward? Analysis of Usage of Voting Rights for Members of Councils and Representatives of National Minorities (2015-2023).

Behind this title lies the answer to the question of how much the national minorities in the Republic of Croatia actually exercise their right to vote (or to be chosen). The fundamental law governing the rights of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia is the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities (CLRNM) from 2002, which, among other things, prescribes the holding of elections for representatives and members of national minority councils in accordance with the special election law, which entered into strength of 2019. Despite the fact that council members and representatives of national minorities have been elected since 2003, elections for council members and representatives of national minorities go unnoticed in the Croatian media space, with the exception of the involvement of certain local media in areas with a large number of inhabitants belonging to national minorities. Apart from invisibility, another problem of elections is low voter turnout, depending on the levels of self-government units where the elections were held. Through an empirical analysis of the election results and Government Reports on the implementation of the CLNMR, I try to answer the question to what extent national minorities were politically active in the previous three elections (2015-2023) and whether more generous state financing of the political activities of councils and/or representatives of national minorities has an effect on voter turnout?