A total of 6,572 polling stations were opened at 7 am on Sunday for Croatia's parliamentary elections, with 4,092,323 citizens with residence in Croatia being eligible to vote for the country's seventh parliament. The polling stations will close at 7 pm.
Of the total number of voters with residence in Croatia, 374,800 are members of ethnic minorities who are eligible to vote in Constituency No. 12 and elect eight minority deputies.
The State Election Commission (DIP) has received 313 slates and 48 candidacies (58 candidates) of national minorities. Of the 313 slates, 285 are party slates, that is 204 single-party and 81 coalition slates, and 28 are independent lists.
Election slates have been submitted by 63 of a total of 116 registered political parties.
A total of 4,359 candidates, of whom 34.96 percent are women, are running for 151 seats in parliament. It is necessary to secure at least 76 seats to have a majority in the state law-making body.
Voters will have to produce their ID cards at polling stations in order to vote.
Disabled, ill and bed-ridden people will have to contact their polling committees in the morning so that they could be enabled to vote at hospital, at home or in senior citizens' homes.
A total of 411,758 citizens without residence in Croatia are eligible to cast their ballots in Constituency No. 11 covering Croats living outside Croatia. The out-of-country voting started on Saturday and polling stations in that constituency will close at 7 pm Sunday as well.
DIP will release preliminary election results at a news conference at midnight on the election day, and it will start publishing provisional election results on its website at 9 pm. Information on returns from polling stations will be updated every fifteen minutes on DIP's web site (www.izbori.hr).
DIP will report on the election turnout at noon and 5 pm.
