Bosnia local elections to be postponed due to lack of funding
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Bosnia’s election authorities said on Saturday that local elections previously set for Oct. 4 would be postponed until Nov. 15 due to a lack of funding.
In the elections, nearly 3.4 million voters are due to choose town and municipal councils and mayors in Bosnia’s two autonomous regions – the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic – as well as in the neutral Brcko district. The election commission has not been able to set deadlines for the voting because the national government has not passed a 2020 budget and failed to allocate necessary funds by a deadline that expired on Friday.
“The elections could not be held in accordance with the election law and will be put off to November 15,” the election commission said.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said: “By conditioning the approval of resources… based on political disputes over the composition of the central election commission, the authorities risk undermining the constitutional order and the functioning of democracy.”
To hold elections, Bosnia’s would need some 4.5 million euros ($4.91 million), half of it provided by the central government and the remainder by local communities. The government has been operating under quarterly interim financing arrangements. It is expected to approve the budget by the end of May, including the funding for the vote.
Balkan Insight report “Milorad Dodik, the Serbian member of Bosnia’s three-member state presidency, blasted the CIK decision as “illegitimate”, following his earlier complaints that the recent appointment of new Serbian members of the elections commission was illegal. Dodik, whose Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, rules in the mainly Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, told RS radio that his party was ready to strike a financing deal for the elections.
The central government in Bosnia provides about half of the 8.2 million Bosnian marks or so(4.1 million euros) needed for organising the elections. The 120 municipalities and 22 towns and cities in the two entities and in Brcko District provide the rest.For the third time, local elections will not take place in the southern city of Mostar, which last voted in a new local administration in 2008. The main Bosniak and Croat parties have still not resolved a long-standing constitutional problem and agreed a new power-sharing scheme for the city. “
