The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina is again in a problem that threatens to jeopardize the holding of local elections, due to the fact that there is no place to store election material because the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH ordered them not to destroy 123 tons of election material from the 2018 general elections.
Namely, the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH informed the Central Election Commission of BiH that it must keep the complete material from the general elections because it may be the subject of an investigation, Nezavisne newspaper reports.
That material is currently in a warehouse that the CEC rents from one private person.
“Yesterday I was in that warehouse and we have one big problem. Our warehouse is full and there can be no more boxes, no ballots. We are already in trouble. We have to empty that warehouse so that we can receive the election material that is already needed. to start arriving and I don’t know how we will solve that problem “, said during the CEC session held on Thursday Jovan Kalaba, a member of the Central Election Commission of BiH.
Due to this problem, the Central Election Commission of BiH sent a letter to the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH requesting an urgent meeting with Gordana Tadic, the Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, or someone it authorizes, in order to find a solution because if the current situation remains from the 2020 elections.
The CEC proposes that either the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH take over the complete material or provide information on specific material that should be preserved, and not that everything be kept.
At the moment, the Central Election Commission of BiH does not have the money needed to rent a new warehouse, nor does it have time for the rental procedure, considering that it is necessary to announce a tender, but also certain internal equipment of that space for storing election material.
Most of this material refers to ballots which, according to the internal acts of the Central Election Commission of BiH, are destroyed after a year, precisely for the reason of freeing up space for new voting material.
