Confusion in the neighborhood: Kolinda Grabar Kitarović's victory is questionable, we are going to the Constitutional Court!

Member of Ivo Josipović's election staff responsible for legal matters, Sandra Petrović Jakovina, told tportal that she believes Kolinda Grabar Kitarović's victory in the presidential elections in Croatia is questionable and that the Constitutional Court should rule on the matter, reports the BH News Agency Patria.

When asked if Josipović, or his staff, would file a request with the State Election Commission (DIP) and the Constitutional Court to review Grabar Kitarović's victory, Petrović Jakovina said they had not yet made a decision, but that she believed they should do so due to the inconsistency between the Law on the Election of the President and the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia.

This will be the most important decision in the history of democracy. It will change the very foundations of democracy in Croatia – said Sandra Petrović Jakovina.
A request to review the election results can be submitted by the presidential candidate after the official announcement of the election results, as well as by the parties that nominated them in the elections. This means that if Josipović does not wish to personally submit the request, SDP and HNS, or any of the parties that supported his candidacy, can do so.

Sandra Petrović Jakovina says that the party has not yet made a final decision, but if one is made, she will gladly write a complaint to the DIP and a request for interpretation to the Constitutional Court. Judging by the statements of Prime Minister Zoran Milanović that he will congratulate the winner only when the results are final, it is expected that the SDP will file a request with the Constitutional Court.

The election results in Croatia have not yet been officially announced; elections must be repeated at a polling station in Karlovac. The whole confusion arose because the DIP did not include invalid ballots in its final calculation.

Professor at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, Dr. Vedran Đulabić, told tportal that the problem is that the DIP incorrectly calculated the percentage because it did not take into account 60,000 invalid votes. This resulted in Kolinda Grabar Kitarović winning with 50.74 percent of the votes, and Ivo Josipović losing with 49.26 percent. However, these numbers are not accurate, and Đulabić points out that Kolinda Grabar Kitarović won with 49.37 percent of the votes, and Josipović won 47.94 percent. However, Dr. Đulabić emphasizes that based on this, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović's victory cannot be challenged because the law stipulates a relative majority for victory in the second round, not an absolute majority of votes cast, as in the first round.

If the Constitutional Court accepts the results as announced by the DIP, it should answer whether invalid ballots are counted in both rounds. Petrović Jakovina warns that they must be counted because they have been counted since the referendum in 1990. Furthermore, they should answer the question of whether the constitutional norm from Article 95 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia applies to Article 17/4 of the Law on the Election of the President. She is convinced that the Constitutional Court would need a legal somersault to declare that invalid ballots are not counted in these elections and to say that the constitutional norm does not apply to some law, reports NAP.