HOW MANY CROATS ARE THERE IN CROATIA?

AIM Zagreb, 30 April, 1997

The condition for any elections to be regular, even if votes are stollen and rules are dishonest, like in Croatia, is to know how many inhabitants are living in a country, and therefrom how many voters there are. When speaking of Croatia, there is such a confusion about these simple facts that any serious and honest oppositionist would have to ask a series of questions, and ultimately lodge a constitutional or some other appeal.

The Statistical Year Book of the Republic of Croatia says that in 1990 there were 3,420,212 citizens with the right to vote registered in the electoral register. If we assume that Croatia at the time had 4,760,000 inhabitants (according to the 1991 census there were 4,784,265 of them), it turns out that there were 71.84 per cent citizens of age eligible to vote. But, just a few pages further on in the same Year Book, there is the datum that according to the 1981 census, and it is hard to believe that much has changed in ten years, there were 74.74 per cent of these citizens, that is that there were 25.26 per cent of citizens under the age of 18. Since the Statistical Year Book includes all kinds of dubious figures, for the occasion we would like to dwell on the fact that there are a little over one quarter of citizens who are under age.

At the elections in 1992, according to the official data, there were 3,575,036 voters, which would mean that Croatia had 4,759,000 inhabitants, or if we accepted the suggestion of the Year Book, there were no less than 4,976,000 citizens of Croatia. According to the former assumption, this would be by about 25,000 people less than in the '91 census, and according to the latter, there would be 192,000 more inhabitants.

A year later, at the elections which followed, the electorate grew to 3,579,497, and if assumed that it formed 74.74 per cent of the total population, it would mean that the number of inhabitants was 4,789,265, that is by five thousand more than at the census of two years before that.

Then there were 1995 elections, which caused complete confusion. First, it was officially publicized that the electorate consisted of 3,601,951 voters, or citizens of age with permanent residence in Croatia. Reports of the Electoral State Commission said, however, that the number of registered voters was by 31,649 larger. This implies that Croatia had 4,861,163 inhabitants in that year and that despite the war, various operations "Flash" and "Storm", it had grown by 76,896 inhabitants. But, this is not the last of surprises. If registered voters from 28 electoral districts are summed up (3,510,818), and those from five special ones established for ethnic minorities (210,173), it turns out that the Croatian electorate consisted of 3,720,991 voters, which means that Croatia had almost five million inhabitants or more precisely 4,978,804. How come nobody noticed that the Electoral Commission in the same document first claimed that there were 3,633,600 voters, and then that there were 87,391 more of them, it is difficult to explain.

Finally, in this year's elections, there were 3,502,936 voters on the official list (without refugees and UNTAES areas). The total of 126,536 banished persons and inhabitants of Podunavlje voted, and if the average response of the voters was 80 per cent, it is easy to arrive at the datum that there were 158,116 citizens with franchise over there. This means that the total of this year's electorate had 3,661,102 voters, and that Croatia should have 4,898,450 inhabitants. Out of that number, there are 117,560 of them living in Podunavlje with Croatian papers.

What can be concluded on the basis of all this confusion? Mildly speaking - something stinks. How many inhabitants does Croatia actually have, and how many voters? The second question which results from the first, is how many Serbs actually live in Croatia? According to the 1991 census, there were 581,663 or 12.2 per cent of them. According to the report of the Electoral Commission submitted in 1995, the special electoral district for the Serb ethnic minority or community had 173,274 registered voters, which would mean that that there were 232,000 Serbs. Only 54,470 of them voted, however, so it remains a secret whether the others boycotted the elections, or did not even exist in such a large number. It has never been explained either what part of Croatia this figure referred to, that is, whether this figure included the Serbs from the then occuppied territories of Croatia.

If one judged by this year's election results, and if one assumed that out of the total number of people who voted there, 15 per cent were of other nationalities, it turns out that there are about 100 thousand Serbs in Podunavlje. The question is whether this figure should be added to the one from 1995 or maybe not? In this case there would have been over 330,000 Serbs in Croatia.

This would mean that less than half had left Croatia, which is quite certainly far from being true. But, the answer perhaps lies in some other data presented by the State Electoral Commission. The smallest response of voters was in Sisak-Moslavina (62.19), Karlovac (63.1), Zadar (64), Lika-Senj (65.33) and Sibenik-Knin district (67.65) and the city of Zagreb (67 per cent). And these are all parts of the country where a lot of Serbs used to live, so it could easily be concluded that someone was toying with "dead souls".

FRAME:

year electorate number of inhabitants

1. 3.570.000 4.760.000
2. 3.575.036 4.759.213
3. 3.579.497 4.789.265
4. 3.720.991 4.978.804
5. 3.661.102 4.898.450

NOTE: The number of inhabitants was calculated under the assumption that 74.74 per cent of inhabitants had the right to vote, that is that 25.26 of them were under age.

GOJKO MARINKOVIC