ZAGREB, May 30 (Xinhua) -- A civic initiative for a campaign to change Croatian election law claimed on its Facebook page on Tuesday evening that it had collected enough signatures to call a referendum about the issue.
The initiative called "The People Decides" wants to change the election law in Croatia by reducing the number of MPs from 150 to 120, by an increase in preferential voting on party slates and by re-drawing of constituencies.
In just two weeks, the civil initiative had gathered more than 375,000 signatures, which is ten percent of the registered electorate.
The initiative is also suggesting a reduction of MPs representing ethnic minorities. It wants a referendum on amendments to the election law so the ethnic minorities representatives would not be allowed to vote on forming of government and the national budget.
The proposal was heavily criticized by minority groups and GONG, a local election-monitoring NGO.
On May 14, GONG warned that the proposed referendum questions were aimed at restricting the rights of ethnic minority MPs that would be contrary to the principle of parliamentarism.
The leader of the Serb's minority in the Croatian Parliament, the biggest minority in the country, said on the same day that the proponents of the referendum were unconstitutional and segregationist.
Croatian parliament has not yet decided if they will submit to the Constitutional Court a request for constitutional review of the referendum questions.
