All the Absurdities of the CIK's Decision

The long-awaited decision of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina on how to fill the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation can be called a complete absurdity – it did not provide a solution and it was completely clear to everyone that its scope would be exactly that even before it was made. It will end up at the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this judicial body will most likely make the final decision on this primarily political knot.

The CIK's decision is extremely political and far exceeds the competencies of that institution. To make the whole story even more paradoxical, the members of the Commission approached its adoption selectively, taking from various legal acts what they needed for a decision that is an unsuccessful attempt at political compromise. From the Constitution of the Federation of BiH, it took solutions regarding the composition and method of election of the House of Peoples, but at the same time, for the demographic basis, it took the 2013 census, as defined by the Election Law, all in order to make a decision that, at least at first glance, would reconcile the opposing views of political subjects. However, it is difficult to believe that the members of the commission were so naive as to seriously count on reconciling different political demands on this issue with this so-called compromise – filling the House of Peoples based on the 2013 census and the famous 1-1-1 rule. Anyone rational, well acquainted with all the circumstances of this political mess, would rather think that the CIK made the decision only to shift responsibility from itself and delegate this explosive topic to the Court or the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but only after it became clear to the CIK members that they could no longer buy time in the vain hope that things would resolve themselves with the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH in the case of Borjana Krišto's appeal. With this decision, the CIK removes immense political pressure that has loomed over its work in recent weeks.

However, it is difficult to understand why the Central Election Commission of BiH agreed to the political ploy that was served to it, with the conscious intention of avoiding its own political responsibility, by what is called the Parliament (but only called that because the people in that body have degraded themselves to the level of mere buttons for confirming the decisions of party leaders, masters of political currents in the country, and often for implementing their political whims). The CIK could simply have declared itself incompetent to make such a decision, but not a small number of analysts believe that individual members of the CIK, on the orders of their former political mentors, consciously accepted this task in order to achieve decisions that would enable those political centers to implement election results according to their measure.

The formation of government is in a kind of deadlock because the entire process, as things stand, will await the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH. However, no one guarantees that this decision will resolve the situation, not only because it can also have political connotations, but due to the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country where the decisions of the Constitutional Court are simply not respected or implemented, and without any consequences for the individuals and political circles that ignore them.

At this moment, we have a complete absurdity. The CIK's decision, welcomed only by European institutions and the United States of America, formally provides a legal framework for forming the government, but, according to legal experts, with a great risk that the Constitutional Court of BiH will declare this process unconstitutional, which is legally almost certain.

Two possible developments are emerging. The first is that the parties that are in a position to participate in the formation of the government will simply refuse to form institutions, i.e., they will boycott the establishment of the government until a final solution is reached. The unanimous reactions of political subjects and announcements of lawsuits and appeals to the Court of BiH and the Constitutional Court of BiH indicate that this scenario will be very likely, and the constitution of institutions will be postponed indefinitely.

The second possibility is that these political parties will agree to the constitution of institutions in accordance with this decision, and then correct them, i.e., rearrange them in accordance with a future court decision. However, this is almost unbelievable in an atmosphere of extreme distrust among political parties.

The decision of the Central Election Commission has clearly brought a continuation of uncertainty instead of a solution. Experts on political affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina claim that the only certainty in this uncertainty is a new political crisis and a possible blockade of the functioning of institutions after all deadlines for the formation of the government have been missed.