The elections of local and regional selfgovernment in the Republic of Croatia

Lokalna samouprava na području današnje Hrvatske kroz stoljeća je mijenjala svoj ustroj kroz oblik župa, županija, kotara. Današnji sustav lokalne samouprave koji je ustrojen u 20 županija i Grad Zagreb sa statusom županije/grada i koji počinje funkcionirati 1993. godine ispočetka je bio centraliziran. U politiku decentralizacije Hrvatska je ušla 2001. godine na kojoj radi i danas. Broj jedinica lokalne samouprave se od 1992. povećao za gotovo pet puta, a fragmentacija jedinica lokalne samouprave koja uzrokuje niz problema ukazuje da je takav teritorijalan ustroj dugoročno neodrživ. Izbori također imaju svoju povijest koja seže čak iz doba Platona. Iako se izbori često povezuju samo s demokratskim društvima ona su dio i drugih sustava poput autoritativnih i totalitarističkih pa zato i samo poimanje izbora ovisi o političkom sustavu. Suvremeni demokratski sustav leži na jednoj od temeljnih pretpostavki demokracije, a to je izborno pravo. Ustavom zajamčeno pravo na lokalnu i područnu (regionalnu) samoupravu ostvaruje se putem lokalnih, odnosno područnih predstavničkih tijela koja su sastavljena od članova izabranih na lokalnim izborima koji su slobodni i tajni te na temelju biračkog prava građana. Lokalni izbori koji se održavaju svake četiri godine raspisuju se i odvijaju u skladu sa Zakonom o lokalnim izborima. Zadnji lokalni izbori u Republici Hrvatskoj proveli su se u 2017. godini na kojima je u većini županija odnijela pobjedu Hrvatska demokratska zajednica.The local self-government in today's Croatia has changed its structure throughout the centuries through its parishes, counties and districts. Today's local self-government system, being established in twenty counties as well as in the City of Zagreb that gained the status of a county and a city and began operating in 1993, has been centralized. Croatia entered the decentralization policy in 2001 and it still operates to this day. The number of local selfgovernment units has increased almost five times since 1992 and the fragmentation of the local self-government units that causes a number of problems, indicates that such territorial organization is unsustainable in the long term. Elections also have their own history that dates back to the time of Plato. Although elections are often associated only with democratic societies, they are also part and other systems such as the authoritarian and totalitarian and that is why the very idea of choice depends on the political system. The modern democratic system lies on one of the basic assumptions of democracy and that is the electoral right. The constitutionally guaranteed right to local and regional self-government is executed through local or regional representative bodies composed of members that have been elected in local elections that are free, undisclosed and are based on the citizens' right to vote. The local elections held every four years and are conducted in accordance with the Local Elections Act. The last local elections in the Republic of Croatia were carried out in 2017 where the Croatian Democratic Union won in most of the counties