CEC to allocate three missing mandates for the Serb Club in the FBiH House of Peoples

(Patria) - The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina will allocate three missing mandates for the Serb Club of the Federal House of Peoples at today's session in Sarajevo. The mandates will be allocated based on the Criteria and Procedure for filling missing mandates in the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina - General Elections 2018, which the CEC adopted last week. 

According to this document, the mandates will most likely be allocated to delegates from the lists for cantonal assemblies from the Una-Sana, Livno, and Sarajevo cantons. From these cantons, one delegate each should enter the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who did not manage to enter the cantonal assembly but declared themselves as Serbs before the 2018 elections and were on the list for those cantonal assemblies.

Potential candidates for the missing delegates are Mladen Lonić (SDP) from the list for the Assembly of the Una-Sana Canton, Nikica Bosnić (Serb List) from the Livno Canton, and Dragan Stevanović (SDP) from the Sarajevo Canton. 

It will only be known at today's session whether these names correspond to the interpretations of the criteria established by the CEC, which are: the number of inhabitants from the Serb people by canton, taking into account the absolute and percentage number of inhabitants in relation to the total population, then the qualification of political entities, which implies crossing the census and winning at least one mandate in the cantonal assembly, and which has candidates on the lists from the Serb people, and the number of personal votes won by candidates from the list of the political entity will also be taken into account. 

In this way, the Serb Club in the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina should be completed and number 17 delegates, like the other national clubs in that house. The criteria themselves have already provoked numerous reactions and objections, as assessments indicate that the CEC cannot change the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina with any acts, but that law can only be changed by the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

According to the current law, delegates to the House of Peoples of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina are elected from cantonal assemblies, i.e., after they have won a mandate as a cantonal deputy. However, this act adopted by the CEC falls within the scope of the Commission's earlier instruction on the allocation of mandates in the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for which a constitutional review had already been requested before the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which in the meantime declared itself incompetent for that task.

Therefore, even if there are those dissatisfied with today's CEC decision, it is uncertain who will decide whether the CEC acted in accordance with the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.