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Zagreb - Parliament on Friday appointed Ivana Belec as a member of the State Electoral Commission (DIP), a permanent and independent institution that supervises elections and referendums, the financing of political parties, election and referendum campaigning.
Belec has been appointed for a term of eight years.
Opposition lawmakers criticised the appointment because they believe that the Opposition-nominated candidate should be appointed to that position while the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) disagreed, stating that the proportion of members from the ruling coalition and opposition parties in DIP was equal.
This is "an unconstitutional and unlawful usurpation" of yet another government institution. The ruling coalition already has four members in DIP while the opposition has 2 members, MP Arsen Bauk of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) said, announcing that his party would submit a constitutional complaint for the appointment to be annulled and that DIP's constitution be "formed" according to the law.
DIP has a total of nine members - the president by default is the president of the Supreme Court. It has four vice president and two of these are appointed by the Supreme Court while the other two are appointed by parliament which also appoints four members.
One vice president and two members are each proposed by the majority and the opposition in proportion to the party structure of the parliament.
Fras and Faulend selected for another term and central bank deputy governors
Bojan Fras and Michael Faulend were reappointed for an additional term of six years as deputy governors of the Croatian National Bank.
Parliament on Friday okayed the activation of parliamentary term of former public administration minister Lovro Kuščević.