Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency member, Dragan Covic said that the parties gathered around the Croat People’s Assembly (HNS) are initiating a “Project B” for the amendments to the Election Law because the activities concerning the changes to the Law make no sense after Bosnia and Herzegovina's Central Election Commission announced the election.
“Activities concerning the amendments make no sense anymore because they would threaten the democratic principles,” Covic said. “We will adjust our activities now. We are initiating a ‘Project B.’ We have new activities which are different from what we've prepared for. We will try to make this group of parties win the election, convincingly.”
During the press conference in Mostar, Covic confirmed that the HNS (a coalition of Croat parties in Bosnia) discussed a joint appearance at the October general election in Bosnia and that activities on certain coalitions within the HNS itself were also discussed. They also discussed the possibility of appearing at the election independently.
“Eight parties supported the idea of appearing independently. Two groups remained open to talking about the state level Government. These are the Croat Republican Party and the Croat Democratic Union 1990.
He said that his party, the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), has been dealing with the issue of amendments to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Bosnian Parliament for the past two years.
“There is no sense in talking about this anymore. I’ve said this to the US and the European officials. I think we’ve exhausted all the possibilities to implement the decision of the Constitutional Court,” Covic added.
He stressed that the local political actors have not been taking this issue seriously and that they attempted to find the solution to the issue only in the past two months, “ignoring the issue for the past two years.”
Considering that the election has been announced, he said that HNS will soon start talking about the candidates for certain positions and the electoral lists.
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 timeframe resulting in a further court ruling to delete two sections of the Election Law that treat the matter of representation in the FBiH House of Peoples.
The ongoing political talks on the electoral reform in Bosnia have been in a deadlock for some time, despite the mediation of international representatives in the country, who took the advisory role in these negotiations.
