For two days now, a popular political topic in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has been the imposition of changes to the electoral law, for which High Representative Christian Schmidt is preparing extensively.
Negotiations and consultations within the Office of the High Representative (OHR) have been going on for days, and the day before yesterday Schmidt had a series of telephone conversations with the leaders of the parliamentary parties on this topic. The fact that Schmidt will soon resort to Bonn powers and impose certain changes in the law is indicated by several details. First of all, with the time when this topic was put on the agenda of the OHR, considering that the elections are approaching, there is also the way of communication with the representatives of the parties.
The decision is ready?
It is certain that Schmidt has already prepared the decision, and that he is currently just polishing the details and measuring the mood among the political parties. The public is currently not getting lot of information from the OHR, as well as other embassies, as they are wisely silent with the message that they do not want to comment on anything.
And considering that this is an extremely important political document and decision, it is illusory to expect that the public does not need to know what is being cooked in the OHR kitchen. There is silence from that institution, and since Tuesday, party presidents have been announcing how they talked with Schmidt about the subject of imposing changes to the electoral law.
Although for now there are only assumptions and certain media information about the document that Schmidt is preparing, the public can already hear, above all, criticism. The silence from the OHR and other embassies further reinforces this. Reactions from political circles so far are mostly in the direction of fear that Schmidt could bring changes to the law that would legalize HDZ’s earlier demands in terms of how to fill the House of Peoples of the Federation of BiH (FBiH).
Messages could also be heard that Schmid’s intervention would relax the situation if it went in the direction of taking away the power of one party to block processes in the FBiH Parliament or in the process of appointing a government in the FBiH.
On the one hand, it is ungrateful to reject what the OHR is preparing right away because not all the details are known, although there are speculations that everyone will gain something from the decision made, but also that everyone will be dissatisfied. But the devil is in the details, which can be crucial. The public deserves the right to know what one of the most important documents in every country will look like – the election law.
The situation on the ground
However, if we leave the essence of the document to one side, Schmidt’s involvement in the electoral law has another dimension. In a political sense, Schmidt’s move, regardless of what the changes in the law entailed, will take the burden off the shoulders of HDZ and SDA. For the former, it will mean that they did everything to get what they wanted, but that they could not get everything, because, in the end, Schmidt made the complete decision.
For the SDA, it will mean that they ultimately did not agree to HDZ’s demands, that they did not “betray”, but that they could not do anything because the decision was made by Schmidt.
In such a scenario, the biggest criticisms will come from the DF, Our Party (NS), and probably the SDP. They will accuse the international community of giving in, the same international community that saw a political change in parties like SDP and NS and openly supported them at certain levels.
Other parties will take the middle path and lean towards the option that is dominant. This implies expressing a certain amount of criticism on the account of OHR, but also welcoming the fact that something happened and moved from the deadlock.
Ultimately, by imposing a decision on changes to the electoral law, no matter how it ends, Schmidt should keep in mind how this move will affect each of the parties and how each party will use this act for pre-election purposes, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
