The Central Election Commission (CEC) should move all of its capacities to Mostar when the city holds its first local election since 2008, the leader of Bosnia’s main Croat Party, Dragan Covic, wrote in a letter to Bosnia’s international administrator, the OSCE Mission Head, the EU Special Representative and the US Ambassador.
Local elections in Bosnia took place on November 15, but the one in Mostar is set for December 20. Mostar did not hold an election in 12 years because of a political deadlock between the ruling parties in the city regarding the implementation of a Constitutional Court ruling that declared parts of the election law unconstitutional. Only this year did Bosnia’s Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and the main Bosniak party in the country, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), reach an agreement on the matter.
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Covic’s letter is addressed to the Head of the EU Delegation in Bosnia, Johann Sattler, the High Representative who oversees the civilian implementation of Bosnia’s Peace Agreement, Valentin Inzko, US Ambassador, Eric Nelson, and OSCE Mission Head, Kathleen Kavalec.
The Bosnian Croat leader noted that his party pushed for the Mostar election to take place at the same time as elsewhere in Bosnia but this “unfortunately” did not happen.
The deadline for the Central Election Commission to publish the final election results in December 15 and the institution must then turn all of its focus to the Mostar election, he stressed.
“Unfortunately, so far we have publicly witnessed countless omissions and irregularities both in the preparation and in the implementation of the 2020 local elections in other local self-government units,” Covic wrote, adding that this is why his party “would like to officially express our fears so the same and similar confusion, omissions and irregularities would not occur in the elections in the City of Mostar.”
He argued that the CEC should move all of its capacities to Mostar “in order to protect the election process, ensure its integrity and preserve the votes, ie guarantee the voters in Mostar that their election will be respected.”
“It is necessary to ensure all the necessary conditions for the election process to take place transparently and in accordance with the procedures provided by the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and for the main centre where all the ballots are counted for the City of Mostar to be in Mostar,” he stressed.
He also called for quality training for local election officials.
Covic concluded that, due to the numerous irregularities in the November 15 election, citizens have no trust in the “illegal composition of the CEC.”
