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OSCE welcomes announcement of date for general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina
SARAJEVO 22 April 2002
SARAJEVO, 22 April 2002 - The Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Robert Beecroft, has welcomed the announcement by the Head of the Election Commission that general elections will be held this autumn. The announcement follows tense negotiations of BiH main political forces to harmonize the constitutions of the Federation and Republika Srpska. Last year BiH's Constitutional Court ruled that constitutional changes were needed in order to be able to vote by the Election Law, passed in August 2001.
"The negotiations leading to this announcement have been difficult for all those concerned about the future of BiH as a democratic state", Mr. Beecroft said. "The OSCE Mission's primary concern throughout this process has been to ensure that the general elections scheduled for this year are successful and held in time".
The President of the BiH Election Commission, Lidija Korac, announced last Friday that the 2002 general elections would be held on 5 October. Mr. Beecroft, who sits on the Election Commission, made it clear that commission members would have liked to see the constitutional revisions passed by the parliaments of both BiH entities - the Federation and Republika Srpska - without the need for them to be imposed by the international community.
"However, I welcome the fact that this imposition was technical in nature, given the fact that the majority of politicians in both entities were prepared to support agreement on amendments necessary to harmonize the entity constitutions, reached on 27 March this year," Mr. Beecroft said. The 27 March agreement signed by the BiH political leaders provides for changes in the country's entity constitutions allowing for fair representation of all BiH constituent peoples.
Mr. Beecroft paid tribute to the hard work and commitment of the High Representative and of those parties and individuals that possessed the leadership qualities and political maturity to reach an agreement in the interest of the people of this country. He stated that it should have been possible to convince everyone involved that the agreement of 27 March was in the best interest of the constituent peoples and individual citizens of the country. "That was, however, not the case," he said. "The sad fact is that there are still individuals and parties - on all sides - who equate compromise with defeat. That is a misunderstanding of the rules of the democratic game."
"In mature democratic states, successful politicians operate on the basis of accommodation, not confrontation. The bargaining may be hard, but at the end of the day, everybody wins - not everything, but something."
"The negotiations leading to this announcement have been difficult for all those concerned about the future of BiH as a democratic state", Mr. Beecroft said. "The OSCE Mission's primary concern throughout this process has been to ensure that the general elections scheduled for this year are successful and held in time".
The President of the BiH Election Commission, Lidija Korac, announced last Friday that the 2002 general elections would be held on 5 October. Mr. Beecroft, who sits on the Election Commission, made it clear that commission members would have liked to see the constitutional revisions passed by the parliaments of both BiH entities - the Federation and Republika Srpska - without the need for them to be imposed by the international community.
"However, I welcome the fact that this imposition was technical in nature, given the fact that the majority of politicians in both entities were prepared to support agreement on amendments necessary to harmonize the entity constitutions, reached on 27 March this year," Mr. Beecroft said. The 27 March agreement signed by the BiH political leaders provides for changes in the country's entity constitutions allowing for fair representation of all BiH constituent peoples.
Mr. Beecroft paid tribute to the hard work and commitment of the High Representative and of those parties and individuals that possessed the leadership qualities and political maturity to reach an agreement in the interest of the people of this country. He stated that it should have been possible to convince everyone involved that the agreement of 27 March was in the best interest of the constituent peoples and individual citizens of the country. "That was, however, not the case," he said. "The sad fact is that there are still individuals and parties - on all sides - who equate compromise with defeat. That is a misunderstanding of the rules of the democratic game."
"In mature democratic states, successful politicians operate on the basis of accommodation, not confrontation. The bargaining may be hard, but at the end of the day, everybody wins - not everything, but something."