Croat lawmakers failed to appear at a Bosnia's House of Peoples session at which the body was to discuss whether a proposal on amendments to Bosnia's Election Law should be put on the agenda in an urgent procedure.

The Law needs change, or else the upcoming October election could be declared invalid. Their absence caused a cancellation of the session as there was no quorum.

„We were orally informed by the Club of Croats (in the House of Peoples) that three deputies: Ljiljana Zovko, Mario Karamatic and Zdenka Dzambas, cannot attend the meeting,” Secretary of the House of Peoples, Bojan Ninkovic, explained.

The House of Peoples is composed of 15 members divided into three Clubs of Peoples – five each for Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. All the other deputies from the Serb and Bosniak Club within the House of Peoples made it to the session.

Two years ago the Constitutional Court ruled that some provisions of the Election Law were inconsistent with the state Constitution. Since then the authorities have failed to act in the legally allowed time-frame resulting in a further court ruling to delete two sections of the Election Law that treats the matter of representation in the FBiH House of Peoples.

“I believe that today's absence of three deputies from the Club of Croats is an effort to buy time so that we announce elections without these changes,” a deputy from the Bosniak Club, Safet Softic, told reporters, granting that there is also a possibility that there were justified reasons for their absence, but that it is unlikely.

House of Peoples Chairman, Ognjen Tadic, scheduled another meeting to take place on May 15.