After observing the 2014 General Elections, the Coalition’s activities continued in the direction of contributing to the improvement of the electoral process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the aim of argumentation and conduct of fruitful discussions on specific topics which are identified as ‘burning issues’, the Coalition made a decision to form a working group composed of young researchers in April 2015 with the task of analysing the Election Laws of the OSCE Member States. Their work resulted in four analyses presented in a joint publication “Overview of Electoral Legislation and Segments of the Electoral Process in 40 OSCE Member States.”
The first analysis is related to the Polling Station Committees which were characterized as the weakest link of the electoral process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following analysis dealt with election deadlines as one of the Coalition’s recommendations was to shorten the existing deadlines from 180 to 120 days as of the day of election announcement. The third analysis focused on reviewing the protection of electoral rights of all election actors as well as the protection of the citizens’ electoral will. The fourth analysis provided an overview on technical aspects of the electoral process with the aim of comparing it with the solutions from analysed states and potentially point out to certain good practices that could be applicable in the case of BiH. All four analyses were presented at roundtables that were held in the period from May through September 2015.
In March 2016, the Coalition has formed another working group of young researchers, this time with the task of analysing the field of process and conditions of registration of political entities, their regular mode of financing, and at the end of election campaign financing regulations in the researched countries. Subsequently, the Coalition during 2016 presented the public with three analyses that dealt with the issues listed above.
The Coalition hopes that this and other materials prepared by the Coalition will be useful for the Interdepartmental Working Group in the process of preparing amendments to the BiH Election Law. All analyses and “Overview of Electoral Legislation and Segments of the Electoral Process in 40 OSCE Member States” can be downloaded here.
