Bosnia’s peace envoy imposes ‘integrity package’ to reform election law

Bosnia’s international peace overseer on Tuesday imposed changes to the country’s election law to ensure its integrity, including barring convicted war criminals from running, ahead of a vote in October.

The former German politician Christian Schmidt said the aim of the “integrity package” was to restore voter trust through measures such as electronic scanning, counting of ballots and voter identification, as well as making election committees more professional.

The changes will also increase security over the handling of election materials before and after voting, and action to prevent voter manipulation.

Previous Bosnian elections have been marred by reports of irregularity and fraud, and international observers have for a decade been urging reforms.

Schmidt said in the light of Bosnia’s bid to start membership talks with the European Union, he was making up for local politicians’ failure to act.

In December, he called on Bosnia’s rival Serb, Croat and Bosniak leaders to change the election law in accordance with international guidelines to ensure a transparent, fair and credible electoral process.

The Croat leaders made the changes conditional on a wider reform of the presidential vote, meaning only Croats would vote for their candidates, and not all people living in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, a Bosnian region which they share with Bosniaks.

via Reuters