Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Sunday evening welcomed High Representative Christian Schmidt's decision to impose changes to Bosnia and Herzegovina's election law, stressing that it secured "the political survival" of BiH Croats.

“We welcome High Representative Christian Schmidt’s intervention in the BiH Federation entity Constitution and the Election Law. We had supported him in that all along after talks between political stakeholders in BiH failed and we held talks with all countries. These changes secure the political survival of Croats and legitimate representation in the House of Peoples and the Government of the Federation of BiH,” Plenkovic said in a Twitter post.

In an unannounced move, High Representative Schmidt on Sunday imposed changes to BiH’s election law that refer to the structure and functioning of the House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH’s Croat-Bosniak entity, and the way decisions are made, to the benefit of Croats.

“After the elections political actors in BiH should continue talks to ensure equality and legitimate representation for all three constituent peoples also in the BiH Presidency. Today we have again witnessed Bosniaks’ outvoting Croats, which undermines the functioning of BiH and harmonious relations between its constituent peoples,” Plenkovic said in a comment on election results released on Sunday evening showing that Zeljko Komsic was in the lead for the Croat member of the BiH Presidency in relation to HDZ BiH candidate Borjana Kristo.