Representatives of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina pointed out at today's session of the Interdepartmental Working Group for Amendments to the Electoral Legislation the need for substantial changes in order to strengthen democracy because elections are the basis of any democratic society.
Head of the Delegation of the European Union to BiH and the EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ambassador Johann Sattler called on the members of the Group to work on amending the electoral legislation in terms of enabling the implementation of Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights judgments, OSCE, ODIHR and the Venice Commission recommendations.
This is important to do in order to restore the trust of citizens in the election process, as well as to ensure that it is in line with European standards because numerous, major shortcomings of that process have been noticed.
"Counting each vote without manipulation is the obligation of all those responsible. There is no reason not to make changes to the electoral legislation, which were pointed out by election observers several times," he underlined.
He noted that filling the polling committees is one of the problems that needs to be addressed. There are technological solutions that would ensure greater transparency, as well as training of people involved in the election process, and all these are changes that should ensure the efficiency of the electoral system.
The members of the Interdepartmental Working Group were also addressed by the Ambassador of the United States of America to Bosnia and Herzegovina Eric Nelson, who noted that not everything is expected to be resolved at once, but it is necessary to focus on changes that have a chance to be implemented.
Given the limited time this year when changes to the electoral legislation should be made, Nelson reminded that everything proposed by the Interdepartmental Working Group will be the subject of discussions in the BiH Parliament.
"It is important to make sure that attempts made to make reforms that would reverse the election process and make it less transparent are stopped," he underlined.
Addressing the members of the Group, Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kathleen Kavalec, announced that she would continue to provide professional, technical and logistical assistance in the demanding process and in the work of the Group at all stages.
She said that the OSCE Mission had previously worked with representatives of the Central Election Commission (CEC), who are not part of this Interdepartmental Working Group, on amendments to bylaws, which is the responsibility of the CEC.
She, therefore, asked for them to be included, adding that the CEC must participate in the work of the Interdepartmental Working Group because it is an institution that will implement all reforms that are adopted, and their knowledge would be useful for better solutions.
