Planned changes to election laws by Bosnia’s High Representative have drawn an angry response from Bosniak politicians who say they are designed to ‘keep the HDZ in power’.

Bosnia’s Bosniaks Claim Election Law Changes Will Help Croats

Sarajevo. Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR

After a year of failed consultations on changes to Bosnia’s election law between political leaders and the international community and less than four months before general elections, the Office of the High Representative, OHR, the international office overseeing Bosnia, intends to introduce changes using its executive powers.

The change means that Bosnia’s constituent nations – Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs – if their numbers in any Federation entity canton are less than 3 per cent, will no longer have representatives in the House of Peoples of the Federation parliament.

Bosniak parties have criticised the plans, claiming that they would be discriminatory and are designed only to help the main Bosnian Croat party, the HDZ.

Investigative portal Istraga.ba has claimed that Croatia’s government sent its own document to the OHR in which it proposed a way to amend Bosnia’s election law.

Critics say the change would help the Croats as it would mean more members from majority-Croat cantons winning seats in the entity’s House of Peoples.

Dragan Čović, head of HDZ in Bosnia, has strongly advocated these changes. He claims Croats are under-represented in Bosnian institutions.

“The OHR BiH’s duty is to follow the highest legal norms and principles embedded in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and not to follow particular political aspirations, even if supported by the biggest EP political group,” Slovenian Member of the European Parliament Klemen Groselj wrote on Twitter.

Azra Zornić, appellant before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg who won a discrimination case against Bosnia and Herzegovina back in 2014 for not being able to run in elections for the state-level House of Peoples as a Bosnian national, who is in the country’s constitution are treated in the category of “others”, condemned Schmidt’s proposal together with psychologist Bojan Šošić.

They accused him of “non-transparent moves” and of “finally disguisedly taking the side of criminals, politicians” and of allowing the “merciless further exploitation of Bosnia”.

Nermin Nikšić, president of the Social Democratic Party, said people would take to the streets to defend what he called “democratic values.”

“The proposal to change the method of electing delegates to the House of Peoples of the FBiH Parliament for the SDP is backward, anti-European and unacceptable in every sense,” Nikšić said.

“The House of Peoples is a legislative house and no one can be denied the opportunity to be elected to it just because they belong to a minority in the ethnic sense, which in the canton in which they live does not exceed 3 per cent,” agreed Šefik Džaferović, chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, from Bosnia’s main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA.

“With its decision, the OHR practically ensures HDZ power in the coming years, maybe even decades. According to the proposed principle, the HDZ will have full control over the political processes in the FBiH,” he added.

The Croat member of Bosnia’s state presidency, Željko Komšić – whose legitimacy is disputed by the main Croat parties in Bosnia – claimed the change would “deepen ethnic divisions”.

“The citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are not ready to accept anti-European solutions that deepen ethnic divisions in the electoral law. Schmidt should think carefully about what he is considering,” he said on Tuesday.

The draft decision, which has already been sent to foreign embassies, lists changes to the Election Law in relation to the functioning of the houses of parliament, the election of the leadership of the Federation entity, the election of judges to the Federation entity’s Constitutional Court as well as numerous changes to ensure the integrity of the election process.

The current Election Law says that delegates to the House of Peoples must be voted on a 1-1-1 basis, with one Bosniak, one Croat and one Serb representative from each canton.

Dragan Čović, head of HDZ and HNS is the loudest advocate of these changes.

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