Elections and electoral law

On May 11, 2025, Albania will hold parliamentary elections, the first since officially opening EU accession negotiations. While some significant changes mark this election—most notably, diaspora voting and partial candidate list openness—major systemic factors remain unchanged. The Socialist Party (SP), in power since 2013, appears poised for an unprecedented fourth mandate.

Therefore, one of the key points of interest for the public is how much the VMRO-DPMNE party has changed in the past seven years under Mickoski’s leadership and how much it has distanced itself from the past behavior.

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.

For twelve years, the citizens of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian city of Mostar have not been able to vote. Thus, Mostar is the only city in Europe in which the right on elections at the local level has been systematically denied. Now there is an agreement between those very extremist representatives who have been preventing the people from going to the polls for years. The deal was also supported by the EU – and the citizens of Mostar are asking indignantly why they were not involved in the political decision-making processes. And why questionable deals are promoted by the state institutions. The agreement, or so the accusations, is only cementing the destructive ethno-nationalism in the country.

Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council Bodo Weber says that the agreement reached is not in for the future of Mostar or the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After not having been held for 12 years, the elections in Mostar on December 20 will be a historical event in the sense of reviving democracy in this city.

Marin Bago, a prominent activist from Mostar, submitted the list of independent candidates “Pravo na Grad” [“Right to the City”] for the Local Elections in Mostar, planned to be held on 20 December 2020, to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) today.

Regarding the “political agreement on the amendments to the Electoral Law of BiH” reached in June between the leaders of two political parties, Bakir Izetbegović (SDA) and Dragan Čović (HDZ), so that after 12 years finally elections can be held in Mostar, the High Representative in BiH rushed to say how that was a “celebration of democracy”.  To a bystander, it looked as if a heavy load was taken off his mind, so that now one can continue under that flag as well. Of course, the conclusions of the two party leaders were agreed in the presence of representatives of the international community, then adopted by the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH at the very last second – less than a month before the deadline imposed by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by the judgement in the case of Ms. Irma Baralija. This citizen of Mostar sued Bosnia and Herzegovina because no elections have been held in that city since 2008!

Ljubo Bešlić has been the Mayor of the City of Mostar since December 2004, so for almost 16 years. It is not known in the history of recent democracy in Europe, probably also the whole world, that someone held an office for so long just because no elections were held. He told Interview.ba that during all those years he intended to resign countless times. But, the question was, he added, to whom to hand over the mandate.

In 2018, Irma Baralija from Mostar filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights against Bosnia and Herzegovina, for violating human rights by failing to hold elections in Mostar for 12 years. In late 2019, she received a judgement which confirmed that the rights of the residents of Mostar guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. As of that moment, leaders of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) launched an active quest for a solution to the Mostar ‘case’. They reached a ‘political agreement’ in June this year, allowing elections but, according to many experts, no substantive changes. For Interview.ba, Baralija speaks about the nationalists’ ‘plan from hell’ for Mostar, how much the agreement damages the civic parties, how the city list of 17 members dropped to 13, and whether it is time for women to remove men from power... 

After 12 long years, the ballot boxes for electing political representatives may be open again in Mostar on 20 December this year, following the 18 June signing of the ‘political agreement’ on elections by leaders of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The recent history of Mostar has seen numerous changes to the election system, and only four elections held since 1995 until today.

After 12 years of deprivation of each citizen of the fundamental human right to elect and stand at elections in a democratic society, a political agreement was reached in the city of Mostar on 18 June, between leaders of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), Bakir Izetbegović, and of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Dragan Čović, on holding the elections in this city. Thus, Mostar is no longer a ‘case’, at least on paper. Professor Suad Arnautović, Ph. D., member of the Central Election Commission, spoke to Interview.ba about reasons for scheduling the Mostar elections for December, unlike other places in BiH, what changes have been made through the recent political agreement, can a Serb, or a Croat like Željko Komšić (whom the HDZ deems an illegitimate representative) become mayor of Mostar, whether all the agreed items can be effected by the deadline, and whether we will have local elections this year or not.

One of the most surprising aspects of the recent Croatian parliamentary elections held on July 5th, 2020 was the unexpected success of the Možemo! coalition of few smaller parties leaning to the new-left and green end of political compass. Although Možemo! gained only 7 mandates out of the total of 151 parliamentary seats, their success indicated that a movement based on grassroots activism and fight for green policies, feminism, workers‘ rights and anti-corruption agenda can be viable not only in Croatia, but also in other countries in the region such as Serbia.

That which the BiH political leaders had failed (or avoided) to do over the past 12 years ended in a matter of months: SDA and HDZ reached an agreement on elections in the city of Mostar. The political analyst Adnan Huskić believes that this agreement is the result of, above all, the pressure by the international community. Here he provides his views regarding statements by Dragan Čović, alternatives in Mostar, abuse of the voting procedures, and also answers the question whether the election would be decided by the voters or the counters.

  All the media announced: “An agreement about Mostar has been signed”, “Elections will be held in Mostar” – the news has been popping up everywhere. One would think this historic agreement would “bring back co-existence and democracy”, as the famous Bosnian movie song goes. But is this really the case?

The Democratic Front (DF) recently tabled amendments to the countries Election Law in parliamentary procedure. Of course, it didn't take long for the HDZ and SNSD headquarters to make it known that they didn't want to talk about it. At the same time, however, the first people of these two parties are threatening to block the state unless the Election Law changes. If, however, they do not want to discuss material put out by DF, the only thing that can be concluded is that the amendments to the Election Law must follow the basic principles under which HDZ operates. So, it’s either the Election Law according to the solutions offered by the HDZ or the combined Čović-Dodik blockade of the state.