Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde on Monday called on politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina to end the current blockades as soon as possible and ensure reforms, notably changes to the electoral law so that general elections could be held next year.

Linde visited Sarajevo in her capacity as chair of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is included in the electoral reform, and met with the members of the Presidency and Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic.

Speaking to the press afterwards, Linde said the OSCE would continue to be active in the region, and that the continuation of reforms was key for restoring people’s trust in the electoral process.

Negotiations on changing the electoral law are at a standstill due to disagreements between the key political parties as to whether priority should be given to solutions that will ensure legitimate representation for the constituent peoples, as demanded by the Croat HDZ BiH party, or to solutions that will eliminate discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or place of residence, on which Bosniak parties insist.

Linde said that too was a topic of her meetings with BiH officials, adding that it was important that they talked about that in a constructive way.

Unfortunately, the ongoing political crisis seems to have stopped those negotiations, she said, adding that the OSCE hoped it would be a temporary stalemate and that the negotiations would resume, leading to changes in the election system.

Minister Turkovic said OSCE continued to have an important role in BiH, notably in keeping security and strengthening democratic standards. But that requires incentives from others too, notably the EU, she added.