SPS: CEC DECISION SERVES TO UNDERMINE CONSTITUTION AND DISTORT ELECTORAL WILL

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 28 /SRNA/ – The Central Election Commission /CEC/ of BiH, instead of protecting election results and the voters’ will, has today put itself in the service of interests of Christian Schmidt and certain foreign interest groups, supporting the distortion of citizens’ will in the entity, the Socialist Party /SPS/ said.

According to SPS, by supporting the decision to call early presidential elections, CEC members have once again shown that they act solely in the interest of external centers of power, whose only goal is to undermine the constitutional order of BiH and the entity. It is alarming, they say, that an institution meant to guarantee the democratic process is unconstitutionally removing the mandate of a legally elected president and calling early elections, even though it is clear that the procedure against President Dodik is based on unconstitutional amendments to the criminal law. SPS emphasizes that the decision of the CEC serves the purpose of undermining the BiH Constitution and the Dayton legal framework. "For BiH, it is disastrous that some of its institutions - the BiH Court, the BiH Prosecutor's Office, and the CEC—operate systematically and in coordination outside the constitutional framework, together with Schmidt's office. Their intent is clear: by abusing the judicial system and electoral mechanisms, they attempt to annul the electoral will of the entity's citizens and achieve a political result that could not be legally realized, namely the removal of President Milorad Dodik from political life," SPS stated. The statement highlights that the National Assembly of the entity has consistently protected the office of the president, the entity's constitution, and, by extension, the BiH Constitution. "Decisions like this do not contribute to resolving the constitutional crisis in BiH; on the contrary, they deepen it further and create insurmountable differences between Republika Srpska and the joint BiH institutions," SPS concluded.