BANJALUKA, SEPTEMBER 5 (ONASA) – The “Under Scrutiny” coalition, which carries out the mission of civil, non-partisan observation of the Local Elections in BiH, presented the First Preliminary Report of the long-term observation of the 2024 Local Elections.
The “Under Scrutiny” coalition is in the period from 22.7. until September 1, 2024. recorded a total of 710 electoral irregularities. The largest number of irregularities refers to misuse of public funds and resources (223 cases) and irregularities in the formation of electoral committees (210 cases). Other irregularities refer to: premature election campaign (93 cases), failures in the work of local election commissions (67 cases), irregularities in the work of the media (39 cases), pressure on voters (24 cases) and various other forms of election irregularities (54 cases ).
So far, it has been identified that 30 political entities violate election rules, and the largest number of irregularities refers to political entities: SNSD (71), SDA (46), HDZ BiH (36), SDS (35) and SDP (29).
The Coalition “Under Scrutiny” warns of a large number of irregularities related to the formation of electoral committees.
As many as 181 cases were recorded where there is suspicion of party infiltration in the positions of president and deputy president of election committees, which according to the latest amendments to the Election Law of BiH may not be connected with parties.
“It is becoming obvious that political parties have no intention of relinquishing absolute control of election committees, regardless of clear election rules. The mechanism that allows them to manipulate election results is still active, and we see, from the cases processed so far, that there are party people on the candidate lists who were previously candidates in the elections or members of election committees in front of the party, or party activists or even members of the immediate family of those entering the election race, according to the “Under Scrutiny” Coalition.
They also called on the CEC of BIH to immediately remove party persons from the list of candidates for non-party presidents and their deputies in all proven cases and impose the prescribed sanctions on them for illegal activities, and to notify the relevant prosecutors’ offices of the aforementioned cases for the purpose of further prosecution.
The Coalition “Under Scrutiny” emphasizes that the Central Voters’ Register (CBS) is still not available to the public. According to the latest amendments to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the public has the right to view excerpts from CBS through the website of the CEC, which has not been done to date.
The “Under Scrutiny” coalition is of the opinion that this is a violation of the law and that it is still not possible to carry out analyzes to examine whether and to what extent voter list manipulations exist.
Based on all these findings, the “Under Scrutiny” Coalition submitted 193 reports to the Central Election Commission related to the premature election campaign, misuse of public funds and resources, and irregularities in the formation of election committees.
On the basis of applications from the “Under Scrutiny” Coalition, the CEC has so far imposed 43 sanctions, namely 55,300 KM in fines, and 29 persons have been removed from the list of candidates for non-party presidents and deputy presidents of election committees.
Given that the election campaign officially begins tomorrow, the “Under Scrutiny” Coalition called on all parties and candidates to strictly adhere to all regulations governing the election campaign and not to resort to incendiary rhetoric when conducting the campaign.
They announced that they will monitor the election campaign and that they will not tolerate any form of irregularities or violations of the law, and that they will actively work to eliminate them and report them to the competent institutions.
The “Under Scrutiny” Coalition also reminded that citizens can register as non-partisan election day observers, as well as report all election irregularities to the “Under Scrutiny” Coalition, via the free phone number 080 05 05 05 or via online forms available at www.podlupom.org. (end)