MOSTAR'S CROATS FOR ONE MUNICIPALITY, ONE CONSTITUENCY

MOSTAR, Jan 26(Hina) - Nearly 99 percent of people voted in favour of Mostar being one municipality and one constituency at a referendum organised yesterday in the southern Bosnian city's three predominantly Croat municipalities, the municipalities' representatives said at a news conference on Monday.#L# There are close to 40,000 eligible voters in said three municipalities. The turnout at the referendum was over 70 percent, and nearly 99 percent voted for the unification of Mostar into a single municipality and a single electoral unit, reporters were told. At a previous referendum, two of the city's three predominantly Muslim municipalities said they were against the abolition of these three municipalities and Mostar being one constituency. The international High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, has said on a number of occasions that mono-ethnic referendums, while not unlawful, are not wise and can pose a threat to Bosnia. The head of the Commission for the Reorganisation of Mostar, Norbert Winterstein, has drafted a new statute for the city which is endorsed by Ashdown but not by local political parties. The Muslim-led Party of Democratic Action has dismissed Winterstein's proposal to abolish Mostar's six existing municipalities, saying it would make the city's Muslim population subordinate to the Croat majority. The party accepts, however, Winterstein's proposal that the city should have six municipalities for local elections in October, something the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina is against. (Hina) ha sb