Press Releases

Sarajevo, March 30, 2017 – members of the Central Election Commission of BiH are on a two-day visit to the Council of Europe. Today they have attended the plenary session of the Congress of local and regional authorities of the Council of Europe at which the report „Observation of Local Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina – October 2016“ was presented. The report was adopted with 112 YES voters, 1 AGAINST and 3 REFRAINED. Mr. Stewart Dickson, head of the observation mission presented the report. The Congress of local and regional authorities had 32 observers at the 2016 Local Elections. The observers visited 250 polling stations and had observed their work. The observers in the report particularly underlined the need to improve procedures for appointment and disbandment of polling station committees’ members in terms of depoliticization, to update voters’ registers in terms of deceased persons, as well as to improve the registration of out-of-country voters in order to prevent abuses. The observers expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that elections were not held in City of Mostar, but giving support to the BiH Central Election Commission in its efforts to improve electoral process in BiH.

The study visit of the BiH Central Election Commission to Strasbourg is only one of four project that the BiH CEC will be implementing in 2017 with technical and financial support of the Council of Europe.