Delegations of the parties that form the government at the state level agreed to form a working group that will work on changes to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is part of the coalition agreement, but also the task that the international community has set for domestic politicians. A three-member team was formed, with one representative each from the SDP, HDZ and SNSD, and they should prepare a proposal for changes to the Election Law in the next six months.
The trio that will work on changes to the Electoral Law are rather stingy in answering the question of which direction the changes will go and what exactly they will refer to. The only thing that is known for sure is that this work should be finished in the next six months.
“It is possible that the first part will be about that Electoral Law to touch on something about the Electoral Commission. Those mechanisms to ensure the quality of the conduct of elections, but certainly also all other topics that we need to resolve through the Election Law”, says HDZ BiH President Dragan Čović.
The opposition, which does not participate in the announced changes to the Electoral Law, doubts the sincerity of the ruling parties’ intention to improve the electoral legislation. In the best case, they believe, any changes will be cosmetic and will not improve the electoral process.
“Apparently three political parties are taking responsibility for possible changes to the electoral law, which is a bit strange in a way. Apparently there is some political agreement. We are exclusively interested in serious, fundamental changes to the Election Law that will ensure fair and honest elections. And to raise that electoral integrity to a satisfactory, true democratic level,” states PDP president Branislav Borenović.
“It is a much broader issue than how the election process will take place, who can run, how many representatives will be elected from which constituency. So I’m not particularly optimistic that they will solve it in the way they envisioned. Because even those who promise them, above all the HDZ, that they will meet them, can hardly swallow it in public”, says Ramiz Salkić from the SDA.
“All of them remained in power for years thanks to the abuse of public companies and resources and the theft of votes, the purchase of electoral committees. The only way to solve the problem with the Electoral Law is for the high representative to make a decision to introduce scanners, video surveillance and fingerprint scanning in order to stop the manipulation of citizens’ electoral will”, believes Nebojša Vukanović from the Za pradvu i red party.
Political analysts who follow the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina are of the opinion that a broad consensus should be reached regarding the amendments to the Election Law, and that such an important issue should not be reduced to an agreement between the leaders of the three parties. Whatever the changes are, they say, they should restore the shaken confidence of citizens in the entire electoral process, especially after the general elections.
“The reform of the Electoral Law cannot be carried out without the wider involvement of several actors. What about political parties. What about representatives of civil society. What experts. So I’m actually afraid that this attempt is already wasted time. Maybe that’s actually the goal,” says political analyst Tanja Topić.
“There are a lot of details that can restore confidence in the electoral process and restore the whole area, which is heavily contaminated today, in a different way. And that will allow the citizens to gain trust and then the turnout will certainly be much higher. Not as we have until now a maximum of 50 percent”, notes political analyst Vehid Šehić.
Bosnia and Herzegovina applied for membership in the European Union in February 2016. In 2019, the European Commission adopted an Opinion on this request, which identifies 14 key priorities that we need to fulfill in order to receive a recommendation for opening negotiations on joining the Union. One of those priorities is the amendments to the Election Law and the Law on Financing Political Parties, in order to conduct the election process in accordance with European standards, with the implementation of the recommendations of the OSCE and the Venice Commission. Nothing has been done about this issue since then.
