John is one of three members of the UK Parliament joining an election observation delegation sent by the Council of Europe to monitor the General and Presidential elections to be held in Bosnia-Herzegovina which takes place on 3rd October. The other two members from the UK are Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Keen of Elie KC.
Election observation missions help to ensure that the crucial values of the Council of Europe in human rights, in promoting democracy and the rule of law are known, understood and accepted and that countries are committed to them in the way they conduct elections. In the last 40 years the Council of Europe has observed over 140 parliamentary and presidential elections in Europe with the participation of over 1,800 parliamentarians.
The purpose of the delegation is to observe that the elections are free and fair and that there is no obvious corruption in the elections process. The delegation is also there to observe that there is transparency, including in the raising of campaign funds, and that the media are not politically biased.
In addition, the delegation will be looking at the role that hate speech can play in an election such as this. It will be keen to observe whether any political pressure has been put on employees by political parties.
John said: "This sort of election observation mission is central to the work of the Council of Europe and is one where the Council has led the way. As a country, the UK has close connections with Bosnia-Herzegovina and we want to ensure that the election process produces a free and fair result. However, one issue will be observing the effect of the elections on the young for the future of their country.”
Lord Russell added:“I went on the pre-election mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina to explore many of these issues and to see for myself how prepared the country was for a General Election and how campaigning was going. We raised a number of issues with the authorities and heard how improvements had been made to the systems. There is a lot to observe in this election and I hope that we will find that public interest and trust are high.”
In total, the Council of Europe is deploying 22 European parliamentarians across the country to undertake this work and to observe in detail how the elections are conducted.
