The election campaign has already started despite the law prohibiting it at this moment, and it is difficult to say if the upcoming election will be fair and free, said Vehid Sehic, an activist observing the election processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Speaking for N1, Sehic said voters were exposed to the pressure and that it was hard to predict the election's outcome at this moment.

He pointed at mass employment based on the partisan affiliation, which is seen as a sort of the pressure and, as he named it, political corruption.

“If you employ someone in a way that is not transparent and in line with the law, then you expect those to return the favour,” Sehic warned, adding, “On the other hand, the political atmosphere is being heated up and we are witnessing again the creation of an ambient of constant return to the past, and that's why they are not truly prepared to face everything that happened, because that's one recipe and, unfortunately, a win-win situation for those who're in power.”

Sehic acts within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections ‘Pod lupom’, formed in 2014 with an aim to implement a project of civic, non-partisan observation of the 2014 election in Bosnia. Since then, the coalition monitored the 2016 election, the early local election in eight municipalities, the first election in the newly formed Stanari municipality and repeated election in the southern municipality of Stolac.

Preventing the election frauds, raising the awareness about the manipulations in elections, encouraging the free expression of will among the voters and making the recommendations for improvement of electoral process and legislation are among the coalition's goals.

Sehic also said most of the political parties which registered for the upcoming October election have a consent on only one thing, distribution of ministerial posts and the posts in the state-owned enterprises.

“When it comes to the appointment of managers in the public enterprises, they instantly reach an agreement, even in the phone sessions, but when it comes to the matters that are vital to citizens we have a deadlock,” Sehci said.

As for a possibility of necessary changes to the electoral legislation prior to the election, Sehic said this was not likely to happen. He also doubted the High Representative – the supreme international community's authority in Bosnia, in charge of overseeing the implementation of civilian part of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), which ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war – would act in this regard.

With the general election scheduled to take place on October 7, the election campaign officially starts September 7.

The citizens will cast their vote for members of the state's tripartite presidency, entity presidents and vice presidents, as well as the members of the state, entity and cantonal parliaments.