Local elections in Bosnia on Sunday mostly took place in accordance with the Election Law and the process was fair in the majority of polling stations, the ‘Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Pod Lupom’ (Under the Magnifying Glass) said on Monday.

The watchdog said that it did register various irregularities but that those were not out of the ordinary and were of the kind that is registered every other election. The only exception was irregularities related to the operations of mobile teams for voters who are infected with the coronavirus.

Nearly 2,600 election observers monitored the process from the moment polling stations opened until the count, but there were efforts to stop this in at some polling stations, Pod Lupom said.

“This was the case at 15 polling stations in Doboj where we could not enter to observe the process in the morning, although we were the first to show up at most of these polling stations, we arrived even before the members of the polling boards,” the NGO said, adding that members of the polling boards at seven polling stations in Banja Luka also did not let the observers enter, arguing that they did not have a list of accredited observers.

Pod Lupom said that there were cases of people who were infected with the coronavirus being prevented from exercising their right to vote.

“We had six months to plan how these people would exercise their right to vote. COVID mobile teams were a good idea, we had a new peak of the epidemic which may have further complicated the process because we would have needed a large number of teams. But none of that is an excuse to prevent someone and take away the right to vote,” it said, calling upon those affected by this problem to submit complaints to the Central Election Commission (CEC).

Another problem with the election process was that there were cases of people showing up at a polling station only to found out that they were already registered as voting via mail.

The process of voting via mail was “nearly completely compromised,” Pod Lupom said.

“We have more than 100 thousand people, a record number, of people who have registered (for voting via mail). We have to ask ourselves, who has more of an interest in voting in the local election than in general elections, while not living in this country,” said project coordinator Dario Jovanovic.