Civil Service Agency Refuses to Appoint CEC Secretary General

(Patria) - The Civil Service Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CSA) refused to appoint the Secretary General of the Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC), and requested that the CEC carry out the appointment after all.

None of the candidates for the position of CEC Secretary General received four votes at the CEC session in mid-August, which was the required number for appointment. Following this, the matter was returned to the Civil Service Agency for the agency to appoint the CEC Secretary General.

According to the Rulebook, the CSA selects the first candidate from the list of proposed candidates.

The CSA previously provided the Patria agency with a ranking list of candidates that was submitted to the CEC members. The top-ranked candidate on that list is Goran Mišković. He was born in 1978 in Livno. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Mostar. Since 2009, he has been employed at the Ministry of Security of BiH as an expert advisor for the security of persons and facilities.

After Mišković, according to the CSA's ranking list, are Elvedin Jusufbašić, Munib Isaković, Ivan Miličević, Enver Išerić, and Emina Ćirić. All five candidates from the Serb people withdrew their candidacy for the position of CEC Secretary General.

The CSA believes that the CEC had the opportunity to choose one of the proposed candidates, but not to reject all candidates. The first Secretary General of the Central Election Commission of BiH, since 2001 when BiH got its Election Commission, was Zoran Đoković, followed by Lidija Korać, Božica Ban, and Radoje Šupeta.

The Party for BiH previously announced that if Goran Mišković is appointed as the CEC Secretary General, it would be, as they stated, "further proof that SNSD and HDZ BiH have complete control over the work of the Central Election Commission of BiH."

Other opposition parties in BiH, such as SDP and DF, as well as non-governmental organizations, have also been warning about the danger of political influence on the CEC for some time. The coalition "Pod lupom" (Under the Magnifying Glass), which monitors the legality of the election process in BiH, recently expressed concerns that the October elections in BiH could be among the 'dirtiest' to date. The IFIMES Institute from Ljubljana, which monitors political processes in the Balkans, recently announced that the current leadership of the CEC lacks the credibility to conduct the elections in BiH.