General Election, 12 October 2014

Floods, May 2014   

Bosnia and Herzegovina experienced devastating floods from 14 to 19 May 2014 after rainfall thought to have been the heaviest in 120 years. 81 municipalities suffered damage, losses and social and/or environmental impacts of varying degrees. Approximately 90,000 people were displaced as their homes were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 continued to depend on government and international assistance as they took refuge with friends/family or in other shelters (BiH 2014). Many schools, health centres and other buildings were damaged or destroyed. Furthermore, landslides caused by the floods dislocated previously marked minefields from the wars of the 1990s (OSCE 2015).   

Impact on the electoral process   

Campaigning was less visible in heavily flood-affected areas (OSCE/ODIHR 2014). Approximately 183 polling station locations were flooded and in some cases destroyed, alongside ballot boxes and other equipment. In total, 25,353 voters were internally displaced (Hadžiabdić 2016).   

The Central Election Commission (CEC) made use of International IDEA’s Electoral Risk Management Tool (ERMTool) to monitor and map the effects of the flooding on the election. This helped the CEC to identify polling station, equipment and voter information needs in the affected areas, enabling the elections to run to schedule (Hadžiabdić 2015).   

The voter turnout for the 2014 general elections was 54.5 per cent; in 2010 it had been 56.5 per cent (International IDEA n.d.).