Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac said in an interview with the Vecernji List daily that the referendum initiative launched by the civil group to change the election law would pave the way for the segregation of ethnic minority parliamentary representatives in relation to other MPs.

He also said that the Serb minority and his Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) have been used as the key argument to persuade people to give their signatures for the referendum petition.

In one of the two questions, the referendum initiative proposed scaling down minority MP voting rights to exclude them from voting on the state budget and government composition.

The other question in the proposed referendum refers to increasing preferential voting on party slates from one to three votes, enabling voters to vote electronically or by mail, and decreasing the number of MPs from the existing 150 to a maximum of 120.

The initiative collected enough signatures to call the referendum. The final decision will be made by the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether the proposed questions are constitutional, and according to the decision, allow or veto the referendum.

Pupovac said that both questions in the referendum initiative contained some elements aimed at reducing minority rights in terms of their political representation.

He also criticised the Croatian President, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, saying she had interfered in the matter.

She said last week that the will of the people needs to be respected, and that the signatures in favour of the referendum meant the people wanted to see changes on Croatia’s political scene.

They have shown a wish to have the election law changed, which is legitimate, the President said.

Pupovac said her entire statement can be perceived as an attempt “to cater to the basest passions, including anti-minority sentiment and attitudes.”

Any representative of the people who forgets that the Constitution and laws stand between office-holders and the people opens a door to “an uncontrollable and dangerous process,” he wrote on his Facebook.

The proposed referendum questions raised a lot of controversy in the public sphere, with the biggest political parties in Croatia, along with the election monitoring NGO Gong, vocally opposing the suggested changes.

Gong said that the proposed referendum question aimed at restricting the minority MPs’ voting rights was contrary to the principle of parliamentarianism, and Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic said the changes would weaken the political system and allow populist candidates without experience to “draw attention to themselves.”

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