Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday that amendments to Bosnia and Herzegovina's electoral law, which reportedly are being prepared by High Representative Christian Schmidt, could be the right way to correct the wrong decisions made by Schmidt's predecessors.

N1 earlier reported, learning from several diplomatic sources, that the international peace envoy in Bosnia, who has special powers vested in him by the Dayton Peace Agreement, and his legal advisers have prepared draft amendments to the Election Law and the Constitution of the Federation BiH entity aimed at restoring the functionality of the entity institutions.

The announcement has sparked fierce reactions among the pro-Bosnian parties, who called the amendments discriminatory and going in favour of the main Croat party HDZ BiH.

Croatian PM commented on the information, assessing as “important” that Schmidt is trying to “rectify the wrong decisions made by his predecessors some 20 years ago and thus to make sure that the bodies that represent the electorate are set up in a fair and effective manner.”

This will be the right way and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be fairer, particularly for the Croats, the least numerous constituent people, if the electoral law is amended, the Croatian PM said.

Media reports on how Schmidt is allegedly trying to amend the law have caused an uproar among Bosniak politicians, especially those from the leading SDA party and from the SDP BiH party.

For instance, Nermin Niksicof the SDP BiH has called for taking to the streets if the law is changed as reported in media articles.

Plenkovic finds these reactions “very indicative.”

The alleged document from the Office of the High Representative envisages that in the future, representatives of the three constituent peoples would be delegated to the national clubs only from those cantons in which they account for at least 3% of the population.

That would practically make it impossible, in the case of Croat delegates, for them to be elected from cantons such as Podrinje, where only several dozen Croats live.

Croat representatives consider it controversial that a mere 24 Croats who live in Podrinje Canton should have the same right to elect one representative into the Federation House of Peoples as, for example, Posavina Canton, where there are nearly 40,000 Croats.

The House of Peoples has a key role in the election of the president and vice-presidents of the Federation entity and its government, and this de facto meets the demands of the Croat parties for legitimate representation.

Other changes refer to the establishment of precise deadlines and procedures for the consideration and adoption of laws, for the appointment of leaders of the Federation and judges of the entity's Constitutional Court. This would prevent the existing blockades and delays.