Permanent Council urges Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities to provide sufficient funds for elections

VIENNA, 31 January 2002 - The Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has expressed urgent concern today over the lack of resources allocated to the Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The 55-nation OSCE body reminded the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities of their commitment to hold elections on 5 October 2002 and requested that contributions be made for the election administration process.

The ability of the country's Election Commission to organize elections which meet European standards will be jeopardized if the authorities do not provide the necessary funding within the next seven days.

The OSCE supervised and conducted elections between 1996 and 2000. Following the conduct of the November 2000 general elections, the work of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in directly supervising elections in the country has come to an end, and the responsibility for election administration has been handed over to the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities.

Given the enormous investment in election administration made by OSCE participating States over the last six years, the Permanent Council is closely following the conduct of the forthcoming elections. The Council expressed concern that technically flawed elections, due in the first instance to a lack in their financing, will signify a grave backwards slide in the democratic development of Bosnia and Herzegovina.