“The Ministry of Finance should quickly make the necessary budget available to the Central Election Commission (CEC) to organize election procedures,” said Oliver Varhelyi, the European Union (EU) Enlargement Commissioner.
Also, the European Commissioner clearly states that fair and free elections must be held in October, as planned. The CECalso points out that the funds are needed as soon as possible. They addressed the authorities, but there is no answer.
“We are now in a stalemate regarding the provision of funds based on the temporary financing and the budget from 2020, given that the Ministry does not react in any way,” said the president of the CEC of BiH, Zeljko Bakalar.
HDZ BiH, the party whose member is the Minister of Finance Vjekoslav Bevanda, repeats that the legal conditions for calling the elections have not been met.
“And that’s all we think, these changes are needed, the decisions of the Constitutional Court must be implemented. We say in public a million times that they have not been implemented. The Constitutional Court has said that. Efforts are being made to make it happen, there is still time. We are asking that the Election Law be changed in what the decisions of the BiH Constitutional Court and the Strasbourg Court are. Then the preconditions are created for the elections to be conducted legally, everything else is only a story,” told Nikola Lovrinovic, HDZ BiH deputy in the BiH Parliament.
While the HDZ is repeating its story, the story of the European Commissioner from the beginning is clear. The law is also clear:
“The election law precisely defined that elections are held on the first Sunday of October in an election year unless that date falls on a date that coincides with a religious holiday of one of the constituent peoples of BiH,” Bakalar concluded.
