Budget for 2022 to be adopted, will elections be postponed?

(Patria) - The Ministry of Finance and Treasury, headed by Vjekoslav Bevanda (HDZ BiH), confirmed today that it is completing activities on the draft Budget Framework Document (DOP) for the period 2022-2024 and the Budget of BiH Institutions and International Obligations of BiH for this year, and that these documents will be sent for further procedure to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of BiH on Monday.

The next step is for the Council of Ministers of BiH to adopt the draft budget and submit it to the constitutional proposer, the Presidency of BiH, which then forwards it to the parliamentary procedure.

The final word in this entire process belongs to the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, where the Law on the Budget of BiH Institutions and International Obligations of BiH for 2022 is adopted.

Given that the Central Election Commission of BiH called the elections for May 4, and the funds for conducting the elections were not provided within 15 days, which forced the CEC to cancel numerous public procurements and seek the engagement of state officials from other institutions to assist the CEC, which some managers refused, any further delay in securing 12.5 million KM for the elections calls into question the deadline for holding the elections. General elections are scheduled to be held on October 2.

Considering the current situation where a part of the government led by HDZ insists on adopting the budget for 2022, from which the elections would be financed, it is certain that the holding of elections could be postponed to November or even December.

The adoption of the budget and the entire procedure could be completed by mid-June if the government works as quickly as Bevanda did over the past two days.