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SARAJEVO, July 17 (FENA) - Head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ambassador Kathleen Kavalec, stated at the end of her three-year mandate in Bosnia and Herzegovina that thanks to dedicated and knowledgeable staff of 300 members in nine field offices, they managed to achieve a great deal during that period.
In her farewell interview with FENA, she said that her number one priority was to ensure that elections continue on time and that they are funded adequately, and that the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina is able to do its work.
She believes that the most important thing for any democracy is to have regular, free and fair elections that give citizens the right to make decisions about their future and to hold politicians accountable, whether citizens feel the politicians are delivering on their campaign promises or whether they need to be replaced.
“I am so glad that elections will take place as scheduled in October, as well as all the work we have done to improve the capacity of the central electoral system. There is now new system for registration of overseas voters that will help reduce fraud and identity theft in elections. There is also a new online registration system for political parties and polling stations committees,” she explained.
She added that efforts are also being made to improve cooperation between election officials and prosecutors in order to reduce election fraud, which is of great importance so that citizens feel that they can trust the system.
There is a high level of distrust about whether their votes are protected, says Kavalec, so the OSCE's work to improve the integrity of the electoral system is of great importance for her.
They were disappointed, like many others, that the agreement on changes to the BiH Election Law was not reached, but a lot was done during the negotiations, especially in the field of improving the integrity of the election process.
Ambassador Kavalec says that the biggest problem in that process was the fact that there is a lack of trust among politicians, as well as the fact that the negotiations did not start earlier, which is why they continued in the election year, even though it is known that an agreement on changes to the election legislation is difficult to reach in the election year.
There are also numerous other achievements that they have achieved in the past three years, emphasizes Kavalec, stating that a new law on conflict of interest was adopted in Brčko District, which should also be adopted at the state level.
A significant part of the work was done on arms control and safety of storage of weapons and ammunition, and they have successfully implemented program that enables testing of ammunition in order to determine stability and improve security of storage sites.
They also helped in the introduction of curriculum reform in several cantons, which should lead to an improvement in the quality of education, that is very important in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Kavalec reminded that PISA test on the quality of education showed that BiH education system gives significantly lower results than countries of the region and Europe, which for her is a big sign of concern.
“BiH also has the problem of an extremely divided education system, because the responsibilities are divided between cantons and entities, so there is no single system, and there are also different interests in different systems, which further complicates the situation,” said Kavalec.
For this reason, the OSCE Mission focused on work on changes to plans and programs in schools, as this can improve the quality of education and in such a way that students develop critical thinking in order to have the opportunity to succeed in today's world.
She says that the phenomenon of "two schools under one roof" definitely does not contribute to educational inclusion, which is why she expressed regret that during her mandate more was not done to overcome this obstacle in education.
Ambassador Kavalec says that the OSCE Mission will continue to work on the reform of the electoral legislation and provide whatever expert support is needed to improve the Election Law as well as quality of electoral process.
The fight against corruption will also remain a priority, and Kavalec reminds that there is already a project that aims to raise citizens' awareness and learn about what they can do to help fight against corruption.
She also referred to the issue of disinformation and fake news, stressing that through social media people can be influenced all over the world, therefore she believes that schools have a role in providing media literacy subjects.
“Some schools have established centers that identify, analyze and react to fake news and disinformation, and some of the Baltic countries have been very successful in this. It is especially important to react so that fake news does not spread further, and that is another thing that needs to be worked on,” she added.
She is of the opinion that the introduction of training within the media community is very important in order to detect fake news more easily. She says that the media always wants to be fast, to attract readers with sensational stories, but people who play with disinformation take advantage of that.
She believes that the answer to such things is conducting campaigns, as the United Nations has done to verify news sources, that is to think before retweeting because all these things can contribute to increasing awareness of fake news.
At the end of an interview with FENA, Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kathleen Kavalec, called on the citizens to go to the polls because during her three years of mandate, she has heard a lot of concerns from citizens about the high level of corruption, lack of economic progress and frustration with politicians, and this can change for the better if citizens go to the polls and vote for leaders who can bring about change.
(FENA) A. B.
