National Assembly of Republika Srpska, Bosnia's Serb-dominated region, gave support to Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency Milorad Dodik and his veto on the Presidency's decision to approve a memorandum on cooperation between the Central Election Commission and a US-based organisation providing assistance in election processes, IFES.
In this way, the document was repealed despite the support of the other two Presidency members.
Dodik convened the parliament's special session and the vote, claiming that the signed memorandum was harmful to the vital national interests of Republika Srpska and that the Presidency adopted it without consensus on August 27 this year.
His statement won a two-third majority in the entity parliament.
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IFES offered assistance to Bosnian authorities in preparing and organising the upcoming local vote, set to take place on November 15, which the Presidency accepted with Dodik's objection. He assessed it as an interference with internal matters and derogation of competencies that its authorities and entities have.
Bosnia's tripartite Presidency consists of representatives of each of its three constituent peoples: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. The Bosniak and Croat members are elected in Bosnia's semi-autonomous Federation entity, shared by Bosniaks and Croats, while the Serb member is elected in its other semi-autonomous entity called Republika Srpska, mostly populated by Serbs.
The power-sharing and country's constitutional setup was determined by the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), a peace treaty which ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
