SARAJEVO, Oct 24 (Hina) - The OSCE mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina is carrying out an investigation in grave breaches of electoral rules and regulations, which explicitly forbid acts that incite the hatred and violence in the run-up to
the 11 November election, a spokesman for the OSCE mission, said in Sarajevo on Tuesday. The spokesman Luke Zahner told reporters that the Provisional Election Commission (PEC) which is a part of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) mission, expressed serious concern at the fact the political parties which will stand for the ballot failed to respect the relevant rules. Parties are appealed to comply with Bosnia-Herzegovina's Constitution and restrain themselves from suggesting unconstitutional ways for the change of the Dayton peace accords in order to establish new structures. This particularly refers to calls for the elimination of (the tw
SARAJEVO, Oct 24 (Hina) - The OSCE mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina is
carrying out an investigation in grave breaches of electoral rules
and regulations, which explicitly forbid acts that incite the
hatred and violence in the run-up to the 11 November election, a
spokesman for the OSCE mission, said in Sarajevo on Tuesday.
The spokesman Luke Zahner told reporters that the Provisional
Election Commission (PEC) which is a part of the OSCE (Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe) mission, expressed serious
concern at the fact the political parties which will stand for the
ballot failed to respect the relevant rules.
Parties are appealed to comply with Bosnia-Herzegovina's
Constitution and restrain themselves from suggesting
unconstitutional ways for the change of the Dayton peace accords in
order to establish new structures. This particularly refers to
calls for the elimination of (the two) entities or to attempts to
modify the state's organisation via referendums, Zahner said.
The PEC is worried with the concrete acts of various political
parties which use the speech of hatred and symbols that can incite
hatred or violence.
The OSCE spokesman refused to give any more detail about the acts in
which the probe was launched.
A call of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina's
(HDZ BiH) to Croats to hold a referendum has already received many
condemnations, and some parties have asked the OSCE to give its
stand on HDZ placards reading "Affiliation or Extermination".
Almost all parties in the Bosnian Serb entity have blamed the Party
for Bosnia-Herzegovina, led by Haris Silajdzic, for advocating the
removal of the constitutional arrangement of Bosnia into two
entities as this party's placards read "BiH Without Entities".
At the beginning of this week posters appeared in Sarajevo
distorting the pre-election messages of the Social Democratic
Party of Bosnia (SDP).
Instead the SDP's slogan "With Us", the 'distorted' slogans read in
the Cyrillic "With Them - Are We Going Back to Past?!".
Those forged bills have the logo of the one-time association of
Communists of Bosnia-Herzegovina (SK BiH) and blurred contours of
the five-pointed red star, which evidently suggests "the danger
from the return of Communism". These fears are in main messages of
two national parties - the (Moslem) Party of Democratic Action
(SDA) and the HDZ - directed against the SDP. Nobody has so far
assumed responsibility for the appearance of those posters.
(hina) ms