One detail of the negotiations on the election law in Neum was especially discussed and analyzed. This is the position of the Venice Commission on the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)proposal. The leader of that party, Dragan Covic, claims that they received the full support of international lawyers, while corrections of allegedly false allegations were arriving from Sarajevo.
According to Covic, the HDZ had as many as nine proposals for only the part of the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that refers to the Presidency. One of those proposals that they put on the table in Neum referred to the so-called prefix in the election of members of the Presidency.
There is a consensus that the Venice Commission has confirmed, in which it is mentioned that the HDZ proposal, which says that one member from the Croat constituent people and other citizens, and one member from the Bosniak constituent people and other citizens are elected in the Federation of BiH (FBiH), is not discriminatory.
Further, HDZ claims that they received support for the model of that election through two electoral lists, but that there is a reserve because there may be an unequal value of the vote.
It is in this part that there is disagreement and a different interpretation of the negotiators from Sarajevo.
At a press conference which was held on Thursday, Covic told that his party’s request is not two constituencies in FBiH, but to propose two electoral lists. But then what is the difference? This, it seems, is not very clear to most negotiators, or at least they do not speak openly about it.
If we assume that this means that every citizen in the FBiH can choose which list to vote for, then the question of the model arises. HDZ allegedly proposes an electoral model with two electoral lists, where there would be a difference in the value of the vote. For example, a citizen could vote for the presidency member in Croat rank from Sarajevo or a citizen of Livno could vote for a Bosniak member of the Presidency, but their votes would not have the same value if they voted the other way around.
In that context, the interpretations and attitudes of the Venice Commission appeared that such a model would be unacceptable.
So, in other words, the two constituencies, which was initially a rejected principle, would have to be done according to the ethnic lines, and the two electoral lists would in principle maintain the current situation, but would essentially bring unequal value to the vote, which is new discrimination.
After the meeting which was organized on Thursday in the BiH Parliament, the talks were not interrupted, but space was left for further agreements, and SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic noted that he would work during the weekend as well. In the meantime, the idea of postponing the elections has been shared in the public space, which the opposition opposes.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba
