Observers Gather in Bosnia to Scrutinise Elections

More than 50,000 national and international observers will monitor Bosnia's eight post-war election whose campaign has less than a week to run.

The Central Electoral Committee has accredited 2,9191 observers, but this figure only refers to those who will be observing the CIK and the main vote collection centre.

"International observers can submit their request by October 7, while municipal electoral committees are in charge of accreditations on that level," Maksida Piric, from the CIK, told BIRN.

The delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Of Europe is coming on October 5 in a mission, joining 486 other confirmed international observers.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, OSCE/ODIHR, will have 242 observers, the US embassy in Sarajevo 110, the EU delegation in Bosnia 45.

Other observers will come from the embassies of Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Sweden along with state electoral committees of Russia and Croatia.

Civic associations in Bosnia will have 2,339 observers.

"In the previous general elections in 2014, we had some similar numbers where the majority were representatives of political subjects while 10 per cent were non-political observers - which could be improved," Vehid Sehic, a member of a network of local NGOs overseeing the elections, Pod Lupom, told BIRN.

A total of 3,352,933 registered voters may choose between 53 parties, 36 coalitions, and 34 independent candidates that have been confirmed as eligible by the Election Commission.

The elections have been marked by various allegations of fraud and of manipulation with the identities of deceased people who have remained in the ID system as well as questions about the imbalance between the number of...