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Ambassador Robert L. Barry
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Madam Chairperson, Presidency, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm very proud to be an honorary member of your
association. It gives me the status to make a few recommendations
to my own country (US)! I would tell them that they could save money
if they were to adopt the system of preferential voting. If the
system had been in place in Florida we would have had a President-elect
the day after the elections were held on November 7th. I would also
introduce them to the BiH provisions on election campaign spending.
There are no limits on advertising in the US, which means that the
last election cost approximately ten times more per voter than the
last election in BiH. Finally, I would recommend that we carry over
the gender rule requiring that a third of candidates should be women.
I would also like to congratulate members of
this association for what you did to make the November General Elections
by far the most technically proficient of all the elections we have
had here to date.
I was asked - just before entering this room
- by a journalist if I thought that the election personnel in BiH
was ready to take over the election administration from the OSCE.
My answer was that you are more than ready. What you did during
the last pre-election phase in terms of improving the register,
in terms of informing people where to vote and in terms of explaining
the novelties was truly a great job well done.
The thing missing, however, before you can take
over the elections is an election law, which needs to be adopted
by the parliament. I will ask for your help in two ways. First,
to assist the OSCE and the OHR in perfecting the law, which we have
unsuccessfully presented to the parliament -I think that there are
still things we have learned from the electoral process, which can
be put into the law to make it even better. Secondly, I would appreciate
suggestions from you as to how we can simplify the process and make
it more affordable. One major expense has been international supervision
- you have seen the last election with international supervision
- and another major expense has been the system for printing and
scanning of ballots, which is both a sophisticated and very expensive
system. We will have to think whether we should maintain the current
system or whether we can successfully convert to a hand count system.
One of the complicating factors in passing an
election law is that it must be consistent with the decision of
the Constitutional Court concerning constituent people in both entities.
It is a very high priority, as was seen in the statement released
by the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, that
the decision of the Constitutional Court be implemented by the entity
parliaments immediately. What is likely to happen, is that an advisory
body will be established with experts and legislators from both
entities and people from the international community. They will
spell out to the legislators in both entities, what are the options
for complying with the Constitutional Court decision. It need not
be a symmetric compliance, but the principle must be the same, in
the sense that in neither entity can there be any discrimination;
that is likely to become an element in the final election law as
well. The two processes must come together simultaneously - the
approval of the election law and the amendments to the national
constitution. The process must be completed in the beginning of
2001 so we can move to the next stage creating entity election laws
and creating the necessary election administration bodies. As for
the rest of the system, I believe that you in the room today constitute
the heart and soul. You are the professionals. You will have to
ensure that the elections will not suffer from undue political influence
when OSCE withdraws. It will be a challenge. The election was indeed
better than previously experienced, but still we experienced very
serious problems. In Zvornik one person signed the voter register
157 times and in other cases we counted more ballots in the box
than there were voters on the register.
Finally, let me say a few words regarding the
implementation of the election results. We are in the process of
translating votes into seats. The first Cantonal meetings are held
as we speak and in the next few days you will see Cantonal governments
be formed and soon the appointment of delegates to the House of
People will take place. It should be a speedy process, as we can't
afford to wait for a long period of time. Important decisions need
to be made fast.
Once again, I would like to thank you for making
me a member of your association and for what you have done to make
the election process working. Elections are now in your hands and
not any longer in the hands of the OSCE.
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