Admir Čavka, a commissioner of the SBB for Republika Srpska, warns about an alarming drop in registered voters outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the Republika Srpska entity.
According to official data from the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 69, 872 voters outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina were registered at the 2022 General Elections, while 48,074 voters were registered for this year’s General Elections, which is almost a one-third decrease. A drop in registered voters from the diaspora is especially visible in the Republika Srpska entity.
“Considering that around 200,000 Bosnians holding a CIPS ID card have a right to vote in Republika Srpska, and that only a couple of thousand of them will vote, it demonstrates a complete defeat of a policy led by pro-Bosnian forces in the last term. A majority simply no longer wants to be deceived and used, as they did immediately after the 2022 elections, when an unconditional entry was made into the new SNSD-led Government. This broke all the promises made to citizens. Today we are paying the price for that deception, and we fear that consequences will be felt after the elections,” Čavka stated for Avaz.
Weakening of Bosniaks
He recalled that the “Movement for State”, made up of the SDA, SDP, and BH Zeleni, supported the SNSD-led government, that the ministerial position went to Sevlid Hurtić at the time, and that the Movement collapsed immediately after.
He said that Ramiz Salkić was the only one who voted against it, while three SDP MPs and one BH Zeleni MP voted “for”. He said that someone must be held accountable, as we lost 31 percent of voters outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the state level, while in some parts of Republika Srpska the decline is greater than 60 percent.
“Every lost voter means a weaker political force for Bosniaks in Republika Srpska,” Čavka said.
Let us take a look at the devastating statistics regarding the number of registered voters from the diaspora in Republika Srpska, noting that it is not only about Bosniaks who will vote in the October elections, but also about Serbs, Croats, and Others.
The largest decrease in the number of diaspora voters in the last four years, at 62 percent, was registered in Banja Luka and Bosanska Gradiška. In Prijedor and Prnjavor, the drop stands at almost 60 percent. Doboj has lost 44 percent, Bijeljina 30 percent, Bratunac 24 percent, Kotor Varoš 18 percent, and Srebrenica 10 percent.
