The OSCE mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) conducted a public opinion survey in August 2021 on a sample of 1,009 adult public officials in BiH, which showed that there is a low level of public trust in the integrity and fairness of the electoral process, relevant institutions and actors, as well as a pronounced frequency of direct experiences with electoral fraud among voters.
According to this survey, 41.3% of the population believe that the electoral system in BiH enables a true reflection of the citizens’ will to a small or extremely small extent, while only 28.2 respondents believe that the electoral system enables this completely.
42% of the population believe that the elections are conducted in an unfair or mostly unfair manner, and only 23% of the population believe that the elections are conducted in a fair or mostly fair manner.
”An astounding 67.5% of residents believe that election fraud in BiH occurs ‘often’ or ‘always’. One in four respondents (25.8) was offered money to vote for a certain party or candidate. More than one in five respondents (22.1%) reported that someone from the electoral committee instructed them who to vote for. A smaller, but still significant percentage of respondents reported threats (9.5%) or blackmail (6.8%),” it is stated.
62% of respondents vote in elections because they consider it their civic duty, while almost half of the respondents pointed out that they go out to vote to prevent the theft or misuse of their vote.
