MOSTAR, Bosnia and Herzegovina (PA) – Rooted ethno-nationalists should have won the first local elections in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar in 12 years, but early results in Sunday’s vote also indicated that parties and alliances would be an important part of the future city council.
Mostar is divided between Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Catholics, who fought fiercely for control of the city during the country’s 1992-95 war. He has not held local elections since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared its electoral rules discriminatory and ordered their change. The two dominant political parties in the city have long failed to agree on how to do this.
According to unofficial partial results published by Bosnia’s Central Electoral Commission, the dominant Bosnian and Croatian nationalist parties – SDA and HDZ, respectively – won the majority of votes, followed mainly by multiethnic political parties and alliances. Unofficial results came from just one of the seven constituencies, but reports from almost all political parties showed similar voting patterns.
Mostar was led by a de facto interim mayor, HDZ’s Ljubo Beslic, and his office, which includes SDA representatives, but no local council was present to oversee their work or allocate nearly 230 million euros from the coffers. the city for years. During this time, the city famous for its picturesque Ottoman architecture saw its infrastructure crumble, garbage accumulating repeatedly on its streets and thousands of citizens leaving for better lives elsewhere.
The dispute was resolved in June, months after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Professor Irma Baralija, who sued Bosnia for discrimination for failing to hold local elections in Mostar.
Baralia was running for a municipal council seat on the ticket of our small and multiethnic Party, which formed an alliance with the Social Democratic Party that was to win at least six seats on the 35-member council.
In order to elect the mayor, to adopt any changes in the city’s status accordingly and for a number of other key projects, the support of a majority of city council legislators, representative of all ethnic communities, is needed. Thus, parliamentarians from multi-ethnic parties seem to become breakers in all disputes, except for certain disputes, between Bosnian nationalists and dominant Croats.
About 100,000 people were eligible to vote, but only about 55% voted.
“Our hope is that life (in Mostar) will improve … we want (Mostar) to be as before (the war),” Ramiz Coric said after voting.
Before the war, mixed ethnic couples accounted for 10% of all marriages in Mostar, and the city was markedly cosmopolitan. During the war, Croats moved west and Bosnians moved east. Since the fighting stopped, the city has had two post offices, two electricity and water suppliers, two telephone networks, two public hospitals and much more – a broken set for each ethnic group.
“It was time. I waited too long,” said another voter, Mirsad Celebic, adding that he did not dare predict who could win: “We will see.”