Bosnia's Central Election Commission (CEC BiH) member Suad Arnautovic said there is “an illusion of democracy” and that the Commission is under “immense pressure.” The methods of pressure vary and while he was not pressured, his colleagues were.

“We have a situation called electoralism. We have many parties. We have an illusion of democracy. The parties appear as mushrooms after rain, 111 political parties is too many,” he said.  

He said that June 9th is the final deadline for political parties to register their candidates.  

“There are so many parties we will reject and won't allow them to take part in the general election due to insufficient number of signatures they need for the candidacy in the election, due to submitting their candidacy documents after the deadline and various other legal grounds,” Arnautovic said, adding that big parties did everything by the book.  

He told N1 that the CEC BiH is not in charge of managing the registration of the deceased voters.  

“There are registry offices and police authorities. These are the two most responsible institutions. There are clearly prescribed procedures prescribing who reports deaths and who deletes the names of the deceased from the electoral register. The CEC BiH has nothing to do with that. However, the Law does stipulate that the CEC BiH is responsible for the accuracy of the register,” Arnautovic explained.  

He added his opinion that voters voting from abroad are discriminated against because they are not registered in the electoral register automatically when being issued Bosnian passports, but they must initiate this process themselves.