Five political parties proposed changes to Bosnian electoral law to avoid an institutional crisis scenario in which October’s general elections go ahead without any legal basis for electing the Federation entity parliament’s upper chamber.
MPs in the entity parliament in Bosnia’s Bosniak- and Croat-dominated Federation could vote in the coming weeks on a new draft electoral law put forward by five political parties – aimed at averting the possibility of general elections going ahead in October without a legal mechanism to elect the Federation parliament’s upper chamber.
But the plan has been drawn up without the main Croat party in Bosnia, the Croat Democratic Union, HDZ, which insists that the reform of electoral law can only be resolved in the state-level parliament.
The HDZ could invoke a legal mechanism that would delay the proposed legislation and could even scupper it completely.
The electoral law problem started in July last year when Constitutional Court cancelled parts of the legislation outlining the legal mechanism for the election of the Federation House of Peoples, after having ruled them unconstitutional.
If general elections go ahead in October without this legal mechanism, it would leave the Federation entity without a president, parliament and government. The state parliament would also be left without its upper chamber.
Many fear that this outcome could lead to the collapse of the country’s institutions.
The parties who agreed on the new draft are already involved in long-running negotiations on reforming Bosnian electoral law – the main Bosniak parties, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and the Alliance for Better Future SBB, the main opposition party, Social Democratic Party, SDP, the Democratic Front, DF, and Nasa Stranka.
“Representatives of these five parties agreed on the text of the law which is completely in line with the constitution of the Federation and which fulfils the principles of the ruling in Ljubic’s case,” Elvir Karabajic from the SDP told regional TV station N1 on Monday.
Karabajic was referring to a December 2016 Constitutional Court decision which partially ruled in favour of a complaint lodged by former Croat Democratic Union politician Bozo Ljubic.
The Constitutional Court ruling found that a law in the Federation entity’s constitution, which obliges its 10 constituent cantons to put forward at least one delegate to the House of Peoples from each of the three main ethnic groups – Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats – even if there are only a handful of people from that ethnic group living in the canton, was inconsistent with the principle of equality enshrined in the state-level constitution.
Each canton must put forward delegates based on a complex calculation to reflect the proportions of the three main ethnic groups living there, but it must also send a minimum of one parliamentary delegate from each ethnic group.
Ljubic argued that this violates the principle of equality enshrined in the Dayton Agreement that ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and serves as the basis of the country’s constitution.
Like many Bosnian Croat politicians, he believes the insistence on appointing Croat delegates in Bosniak-majority cantons and vice versa has distorted Croats’ rights to legitimate representation.
He believes that each canton should have an equal number of delegates from each ethnic group, even though some cantons have very few Croat or Serb residents.
But Karabajic insisted that the draft proposal for changes to the electoral law will eliminate discrimination for the first time in 20 years.
“We call upon the HDZ to support this draft law because the current law which is in force provides no possibility for any other solution,” Karabajic said.
For more read the full of article at The Balkainsight
