Bosnia and Herzegovina's major political parties are still far from reaching an agreement on amendment of the electoral legislation, although the international community's High Representative Christian Schmidt asked them last week to seek a fast solution or he would change the law.

On 19 December, Schmidt gave Bosnia and Herzegovina's authorities three weeks to change the election law to ensure the integrity of the voting process, or he would change the law.

One cannot allow BiH to enter 2024, with local elections due in October, with solutions which have facilitated numerous instances of manipulation and vote-rigging in the past, he told the press in Sarajevo.

Schmidt urged everyone to bolster the integrity of the election process, saying he would like the BiH authorities to solve the problems. If that does not occur in the next two to three weeks, he said, he is authorised to decide that effect. Schmidt said that at this stage he demanded technical changes to the election law, and not changes requiring a broad political consensus. He is asking the state parliament to introduce electronic vote counting, voter identification by fingerprint, and more efficient monitoring of the election process.

Leading politicians of parliamentary parties met in Sarajevo on Wednesday with the Central Election Commission (SIP) to consider possible changes to the election legislation.

The Commission informed those politicians of possible solutions, which would cost €30 million, and said that the complexity of the introduction of new technologies did not allow for their full application in these elections in 2024. New technologies could be expected in the elections in 2026.

HDZ BiH leader Dragan Covic has said that this leading Bosnian Croat party finds it unacceptable to apply solutions that would not address the issue of the legitimate representation of the Croats in the tripartite presidency.

SDP BiH parliamentarian Sasa Magazinovic said today that this party accepted technical amendments which would be well prepared.

The Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik's SNSD party insists on the replacement of the current members of the Central Election Commission before dealing with the amendment of the electoral legislation.