ZAGREB, 27 April 2022 - Bosniak members of Bosnia and Herzegovina's upper house of parliament on Wednesday blocked a vote on amendments to the electoral law put forward by the Croat HDZ BihH party, scuppering the last chance of changing the law before general elections are called for October.
"We declare this proposal harmful to the vital national interests of the Bosniak people," said MP Asim Sarajlić of the Democratic Action Party (SDA). He said that the proposal was completely unacceptable, unilateral and unconstitutional because relevant parliament committees did not have a chance to discuss it.
The parliamentary rules of procedure provide that in case of invoking protection of vital national interests a commission consisting of three members of each national political group should be immediately convened to address the issue in question. If the commission fails to do so, the matter is referred to the Constitutional Court within five days to be dealt with under an urgent procedure.
Explaining the proposal, HDZ MP Bariša Čolak said that his party aimed to create necessary legal prerequisites for calling elections, which the Central Election Commission plans to do on 4 May so that elections can be held in October.
"We no longer have time to wait, because elections have been announced and more comprehensive changes cannot be made because we have no time to amend the constitution," Čolak said, adding that this is why the proposal does not provide for the implementation of any of the five relevant judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights.
Čolak said that the most important thing now was to ensure the election of legitimate members of the state presidency and the upper houses of parliament at the state and entity level to prevent the domination of one constituent peoples over another.
HDZ BiH leader Dragan Čović said there were no legal conditions to hold elections after all attempts to reach a negotiated solution had failed in the last two years and the agreement signed by him and SDA leader Bakir Izetbegović in Mostar in 2020 was frustrated.
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