New Battle for the BiH Presidency: Will the HDZ Condition Partners on Adopting the Election Law That Has Already Passed the House of Peoples?

(Patria) - The House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (PSBiH) adopted in June 2022 the HDZ's proposal for amendments to the Election Law, which concerned, among other things, the distribution and principles of election of delegates to the House of Peoples of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the method of electing members of the BiH Presidency.

For it to enter into force, it also needs to be adopted by the House of Representatives of the PSBiH, for which the HDZ, the Troika and the Serb opposition have a majority, writes Istraga.ba.

Many parts of the proposed law are not in accordance with the Constitution of the FBiH, especially after High Representative Christian Schmidt imposed amendments to the FBiH Constitution and the BiH Election Law in October 2022.

BiH Presidency

The proposed law stipulates that members of the BiH Presidency from the FBiH would be elected by forming two lists.

The winner from the Bosniak people would be the candidate who receives the most votes from the Bosniak people, while the winner from the Croat people would be the one who receives the most votes, provided that candidate has the most votes in three of five cantons (Posavina, West Herzegovina, Herzegovina-Neretva, Canton 10 and Central Bosnia) where Croats constitute a majority or a significant percentage of the population.

If no candidate for a member of the BiH Presidency from the Croat people, who received the most votes in the FBiH, wins a majority in three of five cantons, then it would be necessary to have a majority of votes in two of five cantons. If no candidate meets that criterion either, then the condition would be to have the highest number of votes in the FBiH and a majority of votes in one of the five listed cantons.

House of Peoples of the FBiH

The proposed law stipulates, in terms of the method of filling the House of Peoples of the FBiH, that the possibility for each canton to delegate one Croat, one Serb and one Bosniak, if such a person is elected to the cantonal assembly, would be removed, which is contrary to the Constitution of the FBiH.

"Cantons where the representation of any constituent people is less than 5 percent in relation to the total number of that constituent people in the Federation of BiH would jointly elect one delegate to the House of Peoples of the Federation of BiH," the proposal reads.

Accordingly, only cantons that have over 5 percent of members of a particular constituent people in relation to the total number of members of that constituent people would provide a delegate to the House of Peoples of the FBiH.

This was also the proposal of the Neum negotiations (the so-called 16+1), on which ultimately no agreement was reached.

Also, an additional problem with this part of the law is that today, instead of 17 delegates in each club of constituent peoples, we have 23 delegates.

The current member of the BiH Presidency, Denis Bećirović, who at the time was a delegate in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliament, strongly opposed the adoption of this proposed law.

- When it comes to the HDZ's proposal on amendments to the Election Law, I want to say that it is an anti-European law, a law that is completely contrary to European principles and a law that would introduce even greater discrimination and apartheid into this country, and I want to emphasize that in the full parliamentary procedure, such a proposal can never be adopted - Bećirović said at the time.

Possible HDZ Plan

Representatives of the HDZ have a problem with the fact that any other proposal for amendments to the Election Law, except the mentioned one, would have to pass through the House of Peoples of BiH, where opposition parties in the Bosniak Club have a majority and can break the quorum.

For this reason, the HDZ could condition partners to adopt this proposal of the Election Law, which would then likely be challenged by the opposition before the Constitutional Court of BiH.

The HDZ would rely on the fact that the part of the proposed law relating to the BiH Presidency would not be overturned by the Constitutional Court and would ultimately be declared constitutional.

The fate of other provisions would be less significant to them because they are partially satisfied with Schmidt's amendments.

An identical proposal, in the context of the BiH Presidency, was previously offered by the HDZ to the Troika as a way to avoid changing the BiH Constitution, because the majority did not have enough votes in the PSBiH. However, with strong opposition from the US Embassy, no agreement was reached.

Nevertheless, the president of the HDZ, Dragan Čović, on the eve of a meeting with the opposition from the RS in Kupres, where the formation of a new majority in the Council of Ministers was discussed, did not say whether his insistence on adopting the Election Law, as a precondition for an agreement, refers to the mentioned proposal of the law that passed the House of Peoples of BiH.

From the messages sent in recent days by leaders of the Serb opposition, it is clear that one of the topics of the meeting was also the election of a member of the Presidency from the Croat people, from which it can be read that they would support those principles that suit the HDZ, as long as they do not encroach on the interests of the Republika Srpska.

On the other hand, representatives of the Troika, after Čović's messages that the Election Law is one of the conditions for the new majority, have not publicly spoken out, so their position on this issue is still unclear.

Earlier, they stated publicly that the solution must be in accordance with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which cannot be said for the mentioned HDZ proposal.