Bosnia and Herzegovina’s High Representative Christian Schmidt used his powers to break a political deadlock and impose a decision to allocate finances from state reserves to hold October’s general elections.
The High Representative and EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, German diplomat Christian Schmidt, speaks during the inaugural press conference, in Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina, 04 August 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR
High Representative Christian Schmidt, who oversees the civilian implementation of the peace deal that ended the Bosnian war, imposed a decision on Tuesday to allocate funds for country’s October elections, putting an end to weeks of failed attempts to ensure an adequate budget to hold the polls.
Schmidt used his substantial so-called ‘Bonn powers’ to allocate funds to the Central Election Commission after several failed attempts to agree the financing of the polls by Bosnia’s state-level Council of Ministers.
The latest failed attempt to fund the elections came on Monday, when the country’s Finance Minister Vjekoslav Bevanda, who represents the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ party, yet again blocked a special allocation of funds.
Bevanda justified the decision by saying that a special allocation of funds “is not in line with law and the budget needs to be voted on in a regular procedure”.
Instead of allocating budgetary funds, Bevanda came up with what he said was a solution on Monday to borrow 9.7 million Bosnian marks (around five million euros) from the country’s Regulatory Agency on Communications and transfer that money to the Central Election Commission.
But High Representative Schmidt said the amount would not fully fund the nationwide polls.
“After gathering detailed information with the Ministry of Finance and the CEC, it is quite clear to me that the funds are not enough. As funding for the elections has not yet been secured, it is necessary to ensure that they are held on time,” he told media.
Schmidt said that the CEC will receive an allocation of 12.5 million Bosnian marks (around 6.5 million euros) to organise the elections – the sum that the Council of Ministers was initially asked for.
“I must say that I am not satisfied that I had to make this decision, and in doing so I take into account the commitment of the people to hold elections,” he added.
His decision comes more than a month after the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced that a general election will be held in October.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s election law says that state institutions must provide funds to hold elections within 15 days of the polls being announced, but that deadline passed on May 19.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
