Bećirović: Members of the BiH Central Election Commission should resign

SARAJEVO/LJUBLJANA (Patria) - Director of the International Institute for Middle Eastern and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) from Ljubljana, Zijad Bećirović, believes that members of the Central Election Commission of BiH should resign, after the media reported that at one of the sessions of this body, the method of electing delegates to the House of Peoples of the FBiH, which was assessed as discriminatory, would be discussed.

This concerns materials proposing that Croats from certain cantons in the FBiH, such as the Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Bosnian-Podrinje cantons, should no longer be elected to the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the FBiH, and that from some cantons, Serbs or Bosniaks should not be elected to the same house. 

Analysts assess that the HDZ BiH and Dragan Čović, with the help of the CEC, are attempting to pass such an election law that will ensure that only Croats from western Herzegovina, where the main voting body of that party is located, sit in the House of Peoples, while thousands of Croats from Bosnia would be discriminated against.

Bećirović stated on Dnevnik 3 on FTV that the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina indicated that changes to the Election Law of BiH must be made within the legislature, that the legislature in BiH is the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that any other action is illegal and unconstitutional, “including the action of the Central Election Commission of BiH in this case.”

Bećirović added that it is expected that the Central Election Commission of BiH will face sanctions for its actions. He emphasized that the CEC has lost credibility and, as such, cannot conduct elections, and that it is expected that CEC members resign and that an independent and impartial Central Election Commission be appointed to professionally conduct the elections in BiH in October this year.

When asked what the ultimate goal of the president of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, who most advocates for amending the Election Law of BiH, is, Bećirović believes that the ultimate goal of both Čović and Milorad Dodik is the dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“If you carefully listened to Dodik's speech in Banja Luka addressed to the diaspora, it was an announcement of war in BiH, analytically speaking, while Dragan Čović's actions aim to destabilize BiH,” Bećirović believes, as reported by Patria. 

“His goal is not even his election to the Presidency of BiH, neither under this nor under the amended law, but his goal is to escalate the conflict, which would lead to the dissolution of BiH, and all these efforts are directed towards that,” Bećirović believes.