Ivanic: It will be hard to reach agreement on Election Law

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Bosnia and Herzegovina’s tripartite Presidency member Mladen Ivanic said it will be very difficult to reach an agreement on changes to Bosnia’s Election Law because conflict is the very goal of the parties from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity.

“The FBiH partners don’t want a genuine agreement on this issue. There is no readiness on their behalf to reach an agreement and such a miraculous solution can neither be offered by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, nor by anyone else,” said Ivanic in Bijeljina where attended a public discussion and spoke with the Serb Democratic Party’s (SDS) Leader Vukota Govedarica about the current economic and political issues.

He pointed out that for the past four years of his mandate, he sent a message that Republika Srpska (RS) entity’s representatives want to build a future and that they are ready to make compromises with anyone.

“However, should someone harm the RS’ position and the Serb people's interests, we have the knowledge and the mechanisms on how to defend them. In the past four years of my mandate, I’ve shown that quite clearly,” Ivanic stressed.

He added his expectation is that in the next four years after the general election, the Bosnian institutions will be filled with people ready to make a compromise, who will not be thinking of war.  

 Two years ago the Constitutional Court ruled that some provisions of the Election Law were inconsistent with the state Constitution. Since then the authorities have failed to act in the legally allowed timeframe resulting in a further court ruling to delete two sections of the Election Law that treat the matter of representation in the FBiH House of Peoples.

The ongoing political talks on the electoral reform in Bosnia have been in a deadlock for some time, despite the mediation of international representatives in the country, who took the advisory role in these negotiations.