Elections and electoral law

Technology can make some parts of the electoral process faster, more verifiable and more resilient to certain types of error and abuse. But technology alone does not produce electoral integrity.

Voters first accept a framework of threat and fear, then choose within it the most credible protector. Those who reject the very framework face a much harder task. Hatred is what we see and map. Fear is what enables it to function politically.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's and Serbia's election outcomes could reshape political relations between two strongmen, Aleksandar Vučić and Milorad Dodik, with significant consequences for both countries' further path towards European integration. 

Instead of articulating society’s needs through clear visions, options and solutions that could be implemented through public policies, society was successfully steered through a ritualised gesture of representative democracy.

A high-ranking official’s conviction sparked efforts to relativize the judiciary’s role. By blurring lines between legal and illegal, powerholders sought to ideologize justice, deny responsibility, and reshape the rule of law—further entrenching hybrid-regime dynamics.

Vienna, 13 June 2024 - The June 2024 EU elections hold significant implications for the Western Balkans (WB), a region whose political and economic stability is closely intertwined with European integration and which requires focused attention from the EU.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) cannot yet be defined as a new "stable democracy". Čović (HDZ B&H) is trying to make changes to the B&H Election Law before the 2022 General Elections, which is to ensure the "legitimate representation" of the constituent peoples. In this way, with "legitimate representatives", a way would be opened for the implementation of their own long-term strategy, which undoubtedly goes in the direction of rounding off the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is inhabited by majority Catholic population, i.e. the rebirth of the "extinguished" so-called Herzeg-Bosna, its full territorial and political autonomy and its eventual annexation to the Republic of Croatia.

Criminal ethno-clans have dominated the political scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina for three decades, and the destructive ideologies of the 1990s have never been placed ad acta. Many voters discovered the power of their vote at the local elections, in order to reject the ruling parties in urban centres. In Sarajevo, an alternative block won. The Serbian secessionists surrounding the obstructive member of the BiH Presidency Milorad Dodik suffered a defeat in their stronghold Banja Luka. The voting was accompanied by massive electoral fraud.