The crucial Electoral Management Bodies in Bosnia and Herzegovina are election commissions and polling station committees, which according to the BiH Election Law should be independent and impartial in their work. However, in practice there is a great influence of politics on the work of Electoral Management Bodies. The influence of politics on these bodies is the most obvious in the appearance of electoral irregularities such as trading of seats in polling station committees. During the 2022 General Elections in BiH, this influence was also reflected in the “partisan action” of local election commissions when appointing members of polling station committees.
Trading of seats in polling station committees is something that the Coalition “Pod lupom” has been warning about since 2014, and although the law clearly stipulates that political entities can only have one representative in the composition of polling station committees, cases of one-party polling station committees and fraud have been recorded actually very often. In July 2022, the High Representative in BiH, through amendments to the Election Law, prohibited the trading of seats in polling station committees and provided sanctions for the violation of these legal provisions. However, the CEC BiH did not have the time and resources to develop effective mechanisms to monitor compliance with this provision. The Coalition “Pod lupom” reported 34 cases to the CEC BiH providing evidence of “trading” of seats in polling station committees, i.e., in accordance with the amendments to the BiH Election Law, on the basis of which the first sanctions for this type of irregularity were imposed.
In addition, with the new legal provisions that prohibit the trading of seats in polling station committees and anticipate for high monetary sanctions, a certain number of political entities have given up their intention to directly trade seats in polling station committees, which can be concluded from the fact that in a large number of basic electoral units political subjects did not submit a sufficient number of candidates for polling station committees members. In this regard, unfortunately, there are indications that the trading of seats in polling station committees has changed from a form of party corruption to an even worse form of systemic corruption. The Coalition “Pod lupom” received compliances from several cities and municipalities, containing evidence and strong indications that certain local election commissions are participating in manipulations with its membership in polling station committees by appointing party members in polling station committees as representatives of the local election commission. The Election Law of BiH clearly stipulates that an employee or engaged in the electoral administration will be punished with a fine in the amount of 600.00 KM to 3,000.00 KM for violating (the Election Law) if he/she participates in making a decision that may cast doubt on his/her ability to act impartial. These penalties are symbolic and have not a distracting character in its nature and can even be motivating when it comes to this violation of election rules, because the profit that a certain political option will achieve will be much higher than the payment of the mentioned monetary sanctions. Sanctions should be more rigorous for municipal/city election commissions for serious violations of the Election Law of BiH, such as the impartiality of election commissions, which would mean dismissal of the same and misdemeanor, or criminal sanctions, with the option of a permanent ban from engaging in any work related to elections in BiH.
For the above-stated reasons, the Coalition “Pod lupom” is of the opinion that is necessary for the Electoral Management Bodies to act independently and impartially as well as in accordance with the Election Law of BiH, and to use clearly prescribed mechanisms to supervise the work of these bodies.
