MOSTAR, Bosnia and Herzegovina (AP) – Long-established nationalists were projected to win the first local elections in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar in twelve years, but the first results of Sunday’s vote also indicated that multiethnic parties and alliances would be an important part of the future city council.
Mostar is divided between Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control of the city during the 1992-95 country war. He has not held local elections since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared his electoral rules discriminatory and ordered them to change. The city’s two dominant political parties failed for a long time to agree on how to do so.
According to unofficial partial results released by Bosnia’s Central Electoral Commission, the dominant Bosnian and Croatian nationalist parties – the SDA and HDZ respectively – won the majority of votes, followed mainly by multiethnic political parties and alliances. The unofficial results came from only one of the seven constituencies, but reports from almost all political parties showed similar voting patterns.
Mostar has been led by a de facto acting mayor, Ljubo Beslic of the HDZ, and his office, which included SDA representatives, but there was no local council overseeing his work or the allocation of close to years. All this time, the city famous for its picturesque Ottoman architecture has seen its infrastructure collapse, rubbish repeatedly sweeping its streets and thousands of citizens marching to live better 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 ran for a municipal council seat with the ticket for the small, multi-ethnic Our Party, which formed an alliance with the Social Democratic Party that was expected to win at least six seats on the 35-member council.
It requires the support of a majority legislature of the city council, representing all ethnic communities, to elect the mayor, approve any consequent changes to the city charter and a number of other crucial bills. Thus, lawmakers from multiethnic parties seem to become a tie-break in all but certain disputes between Bosnian nationalists and dominant Croats.
About 100,000 people had the right to vote, but only 55% had 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, ethnically mixed couples accounted for 10% of all marriages in Mostar and the city was markedly cosmopolitan. During the war, the Croats moved to the western side and the Bosnians to the east. Since the fighting stopped, the city has two post offices, two electricity and water suppliers, two telephone networks, two public hospitals and more, a dilapidated complex for each ethnic group.
“It simply came to our notice then. We waited too long, “said another voter, Mirsad Celebic, adding that he did not dare predict who could win:” We’ll see. “