Bosnia: Election Law Fixed, Enabling Formation of Government | Balkan Insight

A controversial decision to fix a dysfunctional election law can enable the formation of a new government and prevent looming financial collapse in the country’s Federation entity, but Bosniak parties will appeal against it. Under strong local and international pressure, Bosnia’s Central Election Commission, CIK, on Tuesday adopted a decision fixing the country’s dysfunctional election law and enabling the establishment of a new government in the Federation entity, which it has lacked since last October’s elections. The formation of a new Federation government by the end of the year would stave off a looming financial collapse in the entity. The CIK adopted the decision by a 5-2 vote, as the two Serbs, two Croats and one ‘other’ ethnic delegate on the CIK outvoted its two Bosniak representatives.

Bosnia: Bosnian Croat nationalists protest election of moderate | Associated Press

Several thousand Bosnian Croat nationalist supporters on Thursday protested the election of a moderate politician to the Croat seat in Bosnia’s three-person presidency. The crowd marched through the ethnically divided southern town of Mostar holding banners reading “Not my president” and “RIP democracy” to protest Zeljko Komsic’s victory. Bosnia’s presidency also has a Muslim and a Serb member. A peace deal that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 ethnic war created a Muslim-Croat region and a Serb region held together in a central government. Komsic advocates strengthening Bosnia’s unity. Nationalist are disputing his win in an election Sunday, saying he was backed by Muslim voters and does not represent Croats.

Bosnia: Pro-Russian Serb leader wins seat in Bosnia’s presidency | Associated Press

Pro-Russia Serb leader Milorad Dodik won a race to fill the Serb seat in Bosnia’s three-member presidency Sunday, deepening ethnic divisions in the country that faced a brutal war some 25 years ago. Preliminary official results from the election gave Dodik 56 percent of the vote and his main opponent, Mladen Ivanic, 42 percent. The projections were made with 44 percent of ballots counted. “The will of the people leaves no doubt what they want,” Dodik said, adding that voters “punished” his opponent for his “servile policies toward the West.” Ivanic conceded defeat. Complete official returns were expected Monday. Dodik advocates the eventual separation of Serbs from Bosnia. His election to the three-person presidency, which also has a Muslim member and a Croat member, deals a blow to efforts to strengthen unity in the country, where ethnic divisions fueled the 1992-95 war that killed 100,000 people and left millions homeless.

Bosnia: Bosnia-Herzegovina gears up for vote amid political frustration | The Guardian

On a tree-lined riverbank in the Sarajevo district of Grbavica, Rabina Baltić pauses at her stall selling tubs of sweetcorn, and gestures in disgust. “Future?” she asks. “There’s no future here! I have a university degree, but look how I work … We’ve lost hope. Every election it’s all mixed, religion and politics.” Twenty-three years after the end of its internecine war that left 100,000 dead, Bosnia-Herzegovina votes on Sunday to elect a bewildering number of national and sub-national presidencies, parliaments, and assemblies. Ethnic-nationalist parties representing the three main communities – Bosniak (Muslim), Serb, and Croat – are expected to top the polls as they have at most previous elections since the current political system was set up by the Dayton peace agreement in 1995. Hope that change will come to one of Europe’s poorest countries is dwindling. The average monthly wage is just over €400 (£355), while unemployment stands at more than 20%, rising to over 45% among young people. The grim economic situation is a major factor driving emigration from the country.

Bosnia: Observers Gather in Bosnia to Scrutinise Elections | Balkan Insight

More than 50,000 national and international observers will monitor Bosnia’s eight post-war election whose campaign has less than a week to run. The Central Electoral Committee has accredited 2,9191 observers, but this figure only refers to those who will be observing the CIK and the main vote collection centre. “International observers can submit their request by October 7, while municipal electoral committees are in charge of accreditations on that level,” Maksida Piric, from the CIK, told BIRN. The delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Of Europe is coming on October 5 in a mission, joining 486 other confirmed international observers.

Bosnia: Serb leader accuses U.S. of meddling in elections, embassy denies charge | Reuters

The president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic has accused the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo of using its development agency to interfere in the Balkan country’s election process, a charge dismissed by the embassy as a “wild” conspiracy theory. Milorad Dodik said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was implementing its aid program through non-government organizations to conceal what he said was its real agenda of countering Russian influence in the region. “Aiming to directly interfere in internal affairs of the Republika Srpska and Bosnia, USAID … tries to avoid all institutions and to grant funds under cover of the alleged fight against crime and corruption,” Dodik said. 

Bosnia: Bosnia Heads Towards Polls Tipped to Worsen Uncertainty | Balkan Insight

Preparations for general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, scheduled for October 7, have entered their final phase after all the political parties finalized the process of submitting their full candidates’ lists to the Central Election Commission, CIK. Although the eighth post-war general election comes in the middle of the country’s worst crisis since the 1992-5 war – and may not even lead to the establishment of new governments on all levels due to the broken election law [link to past reports] – the competition among local political rivals is fierce as ever. The CIK has meanwhile confirmed that 67 parties and 34 independent candidates have been certified to participate in the elections, in which 3.3 million verified voters in the country and abroad will be voting for new institutions at state, entity, cantonal and district levels.

Bosnia: Lawmakers to Vote on Video Surveillance at Elections | Balkan Insight

Lawmakers in the House of Peoples of Bosnia’s state-level parliament are to vote on Wednesday on legal changes approving the use video surveillance and scanners during polling. “We want voters to decide on the results of the election, and not those who count the votes,” Sasa Magazinovic, a member of parliament from the Social Democratic Party, SDP, told BIRN. Parliament’s other chamber, the House of Representatives, adopted the amendments to the country’s electoral law at the beginning of this month. Bosnia is not believed to have major problems with electoral fraud, although some irregularities were noted at the local polls in 2016.

Bosnia: Srebrenica Victims Challenge Mayoral Election ‘Violations’ | Balkan Insight

A coalition of four Srebrenica victims’ associations, including the Mothers of Srebrenica, has filed a criminal complaint against all seven members of Bosnia’s Central Election Commission, alleging violations of electoral law during the recent municipal polls. They accuse the commission of failing to tackle what they claim was hate speech by the Serb candidate for mayor of Srebrenica, of breaking rules on updating voter lists, and of violating election law by excluding 2,000 absentee ballots from election results. They filed the complaint after Serb candidate Mladen Grujicic was officially named victor on Monday, making him Srebrenica’s first Serb mayor since the 1995 massacres of more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. Grujicic received 4,678 votes, while Bosniak mayoral candidate Camil Durakovic got 3,910. The victims’ associations – the Mothers of Srebrenica, Women of Srebrenica, Women of Podrinje, and the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa – believe that the alleged violations could have affected the result in the Serb candidate’s favour.

Bosnia: Srebrenica Votes Recounted as Bosniaks Seek Annulment | Balkan Insight

As a vote recount for the disputed mayoralty of Srebrenica began on Monday in Sarajevo, the Bosniak-led Party of Democratic Action, SDA called for a complete annulment of the local polls in the wartime flashpoint town. According to the SDA, which is led by the Bosniak member of the country’s tripartite presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, the legality of the vote was violated when police special forces from Republika Srpska entered the municipality election commission’s headquarters last Tuesday. “Members of the SDA are seeking to nullify the elections in Srebrenica, because [the RS Ministy of Security’s intervention] grossly undermined the integrity of the electoral process,” said the SDA in a statement. According to the statement, the interference constituted a violation of Bosnia’s electoral code, which stipulates that the Municipal Election Commission is responsible for collecting and processing results.

Bosnia: Tensions rise in Srebrenica as Serb takes election lead | Reuters

Police interrupted election tellers in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, site of the 1995 genocide of 8,000 Muslims, just as they were about to recount ballots in a tense vote which may bring the town its first Serb mayor since the war. Srebrenica became a symbol of Bosniak suffering in the 1992-95 Bosnian war when Bosnian Serb forces surrounded the town, a U.N-protected enclave, and killed its Muslim men and boys. In Sunday’s local election, 70 percent of votes cast locally went to a Bosnian Serb, Mladen Grujicic, causing uproar in a town that is still deeply scarred by the massacre, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two. Grujicic, like many other Serbs, denies that the massacre amounted to a genocide as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has ruled.

Bosnia: Elections A Triumph For Nationalist Parties | RFE

It was not about “the economy, stupid.” It was not about jobs. It was not about general impoverishment. It was about identity. The three nationalist parties — Bosnian Muslim, Serb, and Croat — are the clear winners of the Bosnian local elections. Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik’s (Serbian) Alliance of Independent Social Democrats posted its best results in a decade. At a press conference after preliminary results were announced on October 3, Dodik told journalists that his policy of defending the existence of Republika Srpska (an entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina) had been his winning card, and that people recognized who would betray them and who would protect them. Just before the press conference, a journalist spotted Dodik on the phone and asked whom he was speaking with. Dodik thought for a moment and then, through a half-smile, said, “I was talking to Moscow!” It appeared to have been intended as a reminder of his preelection meeting with the Russian president, which made some people nervous.

Bosnia: Nationalist parties win local elections in Bosnia | Associated Press

Preliminary results early Monday morning show that nationalist parties, including one that wants to break away from Bosnia, easily won local elections held in Bosnia. Voters were picking mayors and municipal councils in both of Bosnia’s two semi-autonomous regions. Those areas — the Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation — each have their own governments, presidents and parliaments, but are linked by shared federal-level institutions. Election officials said slightly more than half of the approximately 3.2 million eligible voters cast ballots Sunday, and in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, the respective nationalist parties almost completely defeated their non-nationalist rivals.

Bosnia: Wind of change: Bosnia’s elections | The Economist

It is easy to write off Bosnia as a dysfunctional country hobbled by unnecessary layers of government in which nothing works. In fact, despite an unduly complex system of government that was the price of ending the war in 1995, Bosnia works—but badly. The elections held on October 12th will probably not alter that. Yet to dismiss them as just one more round of political musical chairs would be wrong. Some change may now be in the air. The war left Bosnia divided between the Serb-run Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation, which is dominated by Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Croats. The Federation is divided into ten cantons. In February it was rocked by rioters demonstrating against their parasitic politicians. In May much of the country was engulfed by floods that caused terrible damage. Bosnia’s infrastructure is run down partly because so much money has been stolen but also because it has to pay for too many levels of government.

Bosnia: Nationalists Lead in Bosnian Vote Count | teleSUR

With over 90 percent of ballots counted, Bosnia’s government appears likely to remain in the hands of Serb, Bosniak and Croat nationalists. Serb, Bosniak and Croat nationalists look to have held on to Bosnia’s three-person presidency, according to partial results released on Monday. Under Bosnia’s complex electoral system, the country as a whole has three presidents – one from each of the country’s major ethnic groups. Over 90 percent of votes from Sunday’s elections are now counted. The country is also divided between two semi-autonomous entities, Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

Bosnia: Nationalists ahead as Bosnia presidency votes counted | AFP

Nationalist candidates of Bosnia’s Croats, Muslims and Serbs were ahead in the race for the country’s tripartite presidency, partial results showed early Monday. Bakir Izetbegovic, head of the main Muslim SDA party, looked set to win his second term as the Muslim member of the joint presidency. Izetbegovic, son of Bosnia’s late wartime leader Alija Izetbegovic, won 33.16 percent of the votes, according to results based on almost 77 percent of ballots counted. His main opponent, local media mogul Fahrudin Radoncic, garnered 26.67 percent, the early results from the electoral commission showed.

Bosnia: The world’s most complicated system of government? | The Guardian

Bosnia and Herzegovina holds its seventh general elections on 12 October. Since the end of the war, political allegiance has been usually based on ethnic identity. Ethnic politics will play its role in Sunday’s elections too, but there are other issues too. The debate, following protests earlier this year, has centred most on economic and social issues, allegedly corrupt politicians, stagnation and jobs – at 27.5%, the unemployment rate in Bosnia is consistently among the highest in the Balkans. The employment rate remains below 40%, and two-thirds of young people are jobless. Meanwhile, the salary of lawmakers is six times the country’s average wage – a rarely lopsided difference, making Bosnia’s MPs, relatively speaking, among the richest in Europe. An additional blow to the economy were the devastating floods in May, which inflicted damages of €2bn (about 15% of the country’s GDP). … Bosnia and Herzegovina comprises two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska. The main cities in the Federation are the capital Sarajevo, and the cities of Mostar, Tuzla, Bihac and Zenica, while in the Republika Srpska entity the main cities are Banja Luka, Bijeljina, Prijedor and Trebinje. Formally part of both entities is theBrčko District, a multi-ethnic self-governing administrative unit.

Bosnia: A new government: Bosnia’s December surprise | The Economist

Out of the blue, Bosnia’s leaders have agreed to form a government, almost 15 months after the October 2010 general election. The country’s politicians had supposedly been on the verge of agreement for so long that most observers had lost faith they would ever be able to strike a deal. There was even talk of a new election.

The deal came on December 28th. “We did not get what we thought we should, but no one got everything they wanted,” said Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska, the Serbian-dominated half of the country. A corruption investigation into Mr Dodik was dropped on the same day the deal was struck. Vjekoslav Bevanda, a member of one of the two main Bosnian Croat parties, has been nominated for the post of prime minister.