The negotiations of the state-level ruling coalition on the reform of the BiH Electoral Law and the alleged agreement they reached have caused numerous reactions from both the opposition and some international actors. Having already commented on the matter once, the US Embassy reiterated on Wednesday that the implementation of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is a crucial step, the only legal way to implement it is constitutional changes.

“The proposals contained in the document written in Laktasi on January 18 say a lot about elections but very little about election integrity. As the United States has already noted, the only legal way to address the ECHR rulings regarding the Presidency is through constitutional amendments,” the embassy said, referring to the court decisions that determined discrimination against BiH citizens in the election process based on their ethnicity or place of residence.

US Embassy: Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot join the EU without amending Dayton Constitution

The embassy criticised parts of the proposed documents as well. It stressed that other proposals in the document “would strengthen the current unaccountable system and move Bosnia and Herzegovina’s party politics towards oligarchy, exactly the wrong direction for the country’s democracy”.

“The language regarding ballot scanning seems designed to preserve the options for electoral fraud which plagued the October 2022 elections rather than to ensure every citizen’s ballot is counted as cast. Finally, a reform of the Polling Station Committees that reduces political party control over these bodies is essential to strengthening the country’s democracy,” according to the embassy.

Presenting the law changes, that he said the political leaders agreed on, Covic said earlier this week that the leaders “assessed it is hard to create the environment where we would have a two-third majority in the Parliament of BiH” for the changes to the Constitution.

HDZ BiH's Covic presents proposal of changes to Bosnia's Election Law

However, leader of the People and Justice party Elmedin Konakovic said on Wednesday that “we don't have a harmonised proposal.”

Bosnia FM says there is no harmonised proposal of Election Law changes, claims Bosnia can meet EU criteria by March

Konakovic said that parties of the Bosniak-civic bloc still believe that it is possible to amend the Constitution, and announced for next week a meeting with representatives of all parliamentary parties to agree a comprehensive solution with the aim of implementing the ECHR rulings, describing the new model of the election of the Croat member of the BiH Presidency “a part of that package.”