Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) - Election - 2022
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a democratic republic with a bicameral parliament. Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats make up the three main ethnicities in Bosnia. According to the latest census from 2013, Bosniaks account for 50.11 percent, Bosnian Serbs 30.78 percent of the population, and Croats 15.43 percent. Many governmental functions are the responsibility of two entities within the state, the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska, as well as the Brcko District, an autonomous administrative unit under Bosnia and Herzegovina sovereignty. The 1995 General Framework Agreement for Peace (the Dayton Accords), which ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war, provides the constitutional framework for governmental structures. The country held general elections in 2018. The results of the general elections were not fully implemented, as the Federation entity-level government and two cantonal governments were not yet formed.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights reported that the 2018 elections were held in a competitive environment but were characterized by continuing segmentation along ethnic lines. While candidates could campaign freely, the office noted that “instances of pressure and undue influence on voters were not effectively addressed,” citing long-standing deficiencies in the legal framework. The office further noted that elections were administered efficiently, but widespread credible allegations of electoral contestants’ manipulating the composition of polling station commissions reduced voter confidence in the integrity of the process. More than 60 complaints of alleged election irregularities were filed with the Central Election Commission.
Significant human rights issues included: problems with the independence of the judiciary; restrictions of free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence and threats of violence against journalists; government corruption; trafficking in persons; lack of investigation of and accountability for violence against women; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence against members of national/ethnic/racial minority groups and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons.
Units in both entities and the Brcko District investigated allegations of police abuse, meted out administrative penalties, and referred cases of criminal misconduct to prosecutors. Given the lack of follow-through on allegations against police abuses, observers considered police impunity widespread, and there were continued reports of corruption within the state and entity security services. Ineffective prosecution of war crimes committed during the 1992-95 conflict continued to be a problem.
A crisis had already been unravelling in Bosnia since October 2021 when secessionist leader Milorad Dodik announced the Serb-led entity of Republika Srpska will be pulling out of key state institutions and forming its own separate institutions including a Serb army. For years, Dodik has been threatening to break up Bosnia, saying that Republika Srpska uniting territorially with Serbia would be the “final frame”. Leader of the Bosnian Croat nationalist party HDZ] Dragan Covic for his part, and other nationalist Croat leaders have for years been pushing for electoral reforms which analysts have said, would result in a de facto third Croat entity and “further entrench the country’s ethnoterritorial oligarchy”.
In December 2021, former High Representative Christian Schwarz-Schilling warned that US State Department official Matthew Palmer and his EU counterpart Angelina Eichhorst were trying to carry out electoral reform in a “very non-transparent” way and under pressure with elections coming up in October. Schwarz-Schilling questioned why the electoral law issue has become a top priority amid Bosnia’s most serious crisis since the end of the war, with Dodik de facto calling for Republika Srpska’s secession. He said changing the constitution and removing its discriminatory parts identified by the ECHR should be dealt with first.
Political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic told Al Jazeera 19 March 2022 that initiatives for a one-person, one-vote system are “very important but they need to be directed at local and international policy makers, and also to take some stock of electoral realities”. “Until the [Croat nationalist party] HDZ in particular suffers some electoral setbacks – which could happen this year with a decent turnout in the right parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and strong diaspora voting – they’ll be able to obstruct any such processes".
The general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina were held on October 2, 2022, in which nearly 51.5 percent of voters voted. Citizens directly elected members of the BiH Presidency, deputies in the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, two entity parliaments, as well as representatives in ten cantonal assemblies. In total, there were more than 420,000 invalid ballots. The new parliamentary majority consisted of a coalition of eight parties, led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of BiH, whose leader is Nermin Nikšic, and the two previous ruling parties - the Croatian Democratic Union of BiH, whose president is Dragan Covic, and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), headed by Milorad Dodik.
On October 10, the CEC ordered a re-counting of votes for the president and vice-president of the RS. They justified this procedure with the numerous objections they received to voting for that level of government, as well as with the submitted video documentation - and that's why they decided to "protect the integrity of the electoral process". The opposition in this BiH. entity held two protest marches in Banja Luka, the administrative center of RS, and filed criminal charges against several persons, including Milorad Dodik, president of the Union of Independent Social Democrats, for "election theft". Denis Becirovic as a candidate of the united opposition, Željko Komšic from the Democratic Front (DF) and Željka Cvijanovic from the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) entered the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of the 42 seats in the state parliament, eight will be held by the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), six by the SNSD, and five by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of BiH.
The 42 members of the House of Representatives, one of two bodies of parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina, were sworn in on 01 December 2022. Laws are adopted in the Chamber of Deputies, and then in the House of Peoples. The House of Peoples, the other bicameral body, was sworn in on 16 February 2023. The House of Peoples consists of 15 delegates, i.e., five delegates each from the three constitutive nations in BiH - Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Two thirds are from the entities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (five Croats and five Bosniaks) and one third from the Republika Srpska (five Serbs). The chairman had been blacklisted by the United States for alleged corruption. Nikola Spiric, an ethnic Serb, was sanctioned by Washington in September 2018. His two deputies will be Kemal Ademovic, the Bosniak representative, and Dragan Covic, the Croat representative.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik again called 24 April 2023 for a union between Serbia and Republika Srpska -- one of Bosnia-Herzegovina's two entities -- amid already high tensions in the region. Dodik -- who had been targeted by sanctions from the United States and Britain over alleged destabilization efforts and corruption -- had repeatedly threatened to push for the independence of Republika Srpska.
Christian Schmidt, the high representative of the international community in Bosnia, on 27 April 2023 made changes to the constitution and the criminal laws of Bosnia's entities to facilitate the formation of the new regional government and prevent election fraud. Schmidt's amendments to the constitution were imposed on an interim basis to help form the new regional government after a deadlock lasting almost seven months following elections in October 2022.
The changes to the criminal laws were prompted by the need to "strengthen the integrity of elections" and apply to Bosnia and Republika Srpska, the other entity within Bosnia. These changes make it illegal to ask for or take money or any benefit, such as employment, from politicians and set the punishment for anyone found guilty of such actions at 10 years in prison and a fine. The amendments to criminal laws also imply dismissal from a legislative, executive, other administrative or judicial body or from any service that is fully or partially financed from entity budgets for anyone found guilty of election bribery. In addition, anyone found guilty of the offense cannot be employed in any public service for five years after being punished, pardoned, or amnestied.
Bosnia-Herzegovina's House of Representatives appointed a new government in an urgent session held on 28 April 2023, a day after the high representative of the international community imposed changes to the country's constitution and the criminal laws. The 16 new ministerial positions will be split among members of the Croatian Democratic Union, the Social Democratic Party, the Croatian Democratic Union 1990, and the political parties Nasa Stranka and Narod i Pravda. Vice President Refik Lendo opposed the new government appointments, demanding his Party of Democratic Action be given a portfolio. His party organized protests outside the parliament during the vote.
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