SPEECH OF DR. AHMET ŠANTIĆ, PRESIDENT OF THE BIH CEC AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE HELD TODAY IN SARAJEVO
Sarajevo, December 22, 2015 – A press conference was held today in the BiH Central Election Commission in Sarajevo at which activities of the BiH CEC in 2015 were presented together with the activities planned in 2016. On this occasion Dr. Ahmet Šantić, president of the BiH CEC, delivered a speech. Below is a portion of Dr. Šantić’s speech:
“After the BiH Central Election Commission confirmed results of direct and indirect elections it acceded to evaluate performance of the election management bodies, primarily the performance of the polling station committees. Therefore the BiH CEC held a three-day conference “2014 General Elections – lessons learned” in March, 2015 in Teslić. At the same time we initiated procedures to determine responsibility of the polling station committees’ members from the PS where we have found irregularities.
So far we have passed 294 decision sanctioning members and deputy members of the polling station committees at 94 polling stations in 50 basic constituencies. They were pronounced pecuniary fines and were declared ineligible to work in election management bodies for the period of four years.
Early elections for mayors were held in 6 municipalities in this year: Domaljevac-Šamac, East Drvar, Živinice, Kalesija, Fojnica, Milići and first elections for the bodies of the newly-established Municipality Stanari.
Furthermore, the BiH CEC had on October 8, 2015 announced early elections for Bosansko Grahovo municipality and the elections were scheduled for December 6, 2015. However, the BiH CEC postponed the elections by a decision on November 19, 2015 since the conditions set forth in Article 1.2a, paragraph (2) and Article 1.2b of the BiH Election Law were not met – the funds necessary for administering the elections were not provided by Bosansko Grahovo municipality nor by the higher levels of authority.
Furthermore, mayors of four municipalities were recalled in 2015: Šipovo, Milići, Bosansko Grahovo and Kneževo.
A total of 114 (78.72%) out of 143 city/municipal election commissions in BiH are fully staffed.
A total of 388 (69.4%) out of 559 members of election commission were under appointment/dismissal procedure in 2015.
The BiH CEC received annual financial statements of 116 political parties.
A total of 102 out of 132 political parties in the records of the BiH CEC submitted annual financial report for 2014 on time (by March 31, 2015), while 14 parties submitted the report after the legal deadline i.e. after the notices were sent by the BiH CEC. A total of 16 political parties failed to submit the annual financial report.
According to the financial reports, political parties, in 2014, were financed from the following sources:
During 2015 the BiH CEC initiated procedure to establish liability of 28 political parties due to reasonable doubt that they violated Law on political party financing in 2013.
“After the BiH Central Election Commission confirmed results of direct and indirect elections it acceded to evaluate performance of the election management bodies, primarily the performance of the polling station committees. Therefore the BiH CEC held a three-day conference “2014 General Elections – lessons learned” in March, 2015 in Teslić. At the same time we initiated procedures to determine responsibility of the polling station committees’ members from the PS where we have found irregularities.
So far we have passed 294 decision sanctioning members and deputy members of the polling station committees at 94 polling stations in 50 basic constituencies. They were pronounced pecuniary fines and were declared ineligible to work in election management bodies for the period of four years.
Early elections for mayors were held in 6 municipalities in this year: Domaljevac-Šamac, East Drvar, Živinice, Kalesija, Fojnica, Milići and first elections for the bodies of the newly-established Municipality Stanari.
Furthermore, the BiH CEC had on October 8, 2015 announced early elections for Bosansko Grahovo municipality and the elections were scheduled for December 6, 2015. However, the BiH CEC postponed the elections by a decision on November 19, 2015 since the conditions set forth in Article 1.2a, paragraph (2) and Article 1.2b of the BiH Election Law were not met – the funds necessary for administering the elections were not provided by Bosansko Grahovo municipality nor by the higher levels of authority.
Furthermore, mayors of four municipalities were recalled in 2015: Šipovo, Milići, Bosansko Grahovo and Kneževo.
A total of 114 (78.72%) out of 143 city/municipal election commissions in BiH are fully staffed.
A total of 388 (69.4%) out of 559 members of election commission were under appointment/dismissal procedure in 2015.
The BiH CEC received annual financial statements of 116 political parties.
A total of 102 out of 132 political parties in the records of the BiH CEC submitted annual financial report for 2014 on time (by March 31, 2015), while 14 parties submitted the report after the legal deadline i.e. after the notices were sent by the BiH CEC. A total of 16 political parties failed to submit the annual financial report.
According to the financial reports, political parties, in 2014, were financed from the following sources:
- 70.10% incomes from the budgets;
- 14.32% contributions by natural persons;
- 6.80% incomes from membership fee;
- 4.12% contributions by legal entities;
- 2.68% incomes from parties’ property;
- 0.98% incomes from gifts and services that the party was not obligated to pay;
- 0.05% profit of legal entities owned by the party,
- 0.90% other incomes, and
- 0.05% from bank loans.
During 2015 the BiH CEC initiated procedure to establish liability of 28 political parties due to reasonable doubt that they violated Law on political party financing in 2013.
- BiH CEC pronounced pecuniary fines to 21 political parties for violation of provisions that relate to: acceptance of prohibited contributions, failure to report contributions made by natural and legal persons, and failure to deposit the funds to the transaction account that the parties collected as contributions in cash.
- The BiH CEC pronounced administrative measure to six political parties, prohibiting their participation at the next elections.”