SARAJEVO, Nov 10 (Hina) - Over 2.5 million Bosnia and Herzegovina citizens with the right to vote will on Nov. 11 have the opportunity to cast ballots at general elections for the third time after the Dayton peace accord was signed
and the conflicts ended in 1995. Ballots will be cast at 3,220 polling stations open between 07.00 and 19.00 hours on Saturday. The casting and counting will be observed by personnel with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission to Bosnia, including 735 international observers coming to Bosnia just for the elections. This year, 44 parties, one coalition, six independent candidates, and three lists of independent candidates will run for seats in the houses of representatives of the parliaments of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Croat-Muslim federation, the new composition of the Serb republic's people's assembly, and cantonal assemblies in the federation. Vot
SARAJEVO, Nov 10 (Hina) - Over 2.5 million Bosnia and Herzegovina
citizens with the right to vote will on Nov. 11 have the opportunity
to cast ballots at general elections for the third time after the
Dayton peace accord was signed and the conflicts ended in 1995.
Ballots will be cast at 3,220 polling stations open between 07.00
and 19.00 hours on Saturday. The casting and counting will be
observed by personnel with the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe Mission to Bosnia, including 735
international observers coming to Bosnia just for the elections.
This year, 44 parties, one coalition, six independent candidates,
and three lists of independent candidates will run for seats in the
houses of representatives of the parliaments of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and its Croat-Muslim federation, the new composition
of the Serb republic's people's assembly, and cantonal assemblies
in the federation. Voters will also elect the new make-up of the
municipal council of Srebrenica.
This year, transitional electoral rules and regulations have been
somewhat changed. The preferential system has been introduced to
elect the president and vice president of the Serb entity, which is
actually a different version of the run-up for the two best placed
pairs of candidates.
There is also a new system of multimember electoral units crossing
existing administrative borders within the country which increase
the chances of parties with potent regional strongholds.
Under a Transitional Electoral Commission decision, changes have
also been effected for the election of deputies to the houses of
representatives of the federal and state parliaments. They will be
chosen with votes of all deputies in cantonal assemblies, and not on
an exclusively ethnic principle.
Electoral results, officially to be released by OSCE, are not
expected to be made public for several days, but parties should have
relatively reliable indicators of their success in the early hours
of Sunday.
The OSCE Mission this year has invested a lot of effort to urge
parties and voters to think about how to settle key economic issues,
an ever increasing burden on Bosnia. OSCE analyses have shown that
most citizens think economic issues are paramount and would like
the new politicians to first of all tackle opening new jobs. Current
indicators show Bosnia's unemployment rate is 40 percent.
Polls have also shown that as much as 70 percent of the population
believes that "all or almost all" politicians in Bosnia are
corrupted. One of the principal pre-electoral slogans OSCE has
insisted on is "Outvote Corruption."
In the end, however, the electoral campaign primarily addressed
political issues. The climate reached boiling point after the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party decided to call a referendum
on election day for Croats to have their say on their future status
in Bosnia.
OSCE said the decision was an attempt to breach electoral blackout.
HDZ will probably face penalties, for instance have its members
erased from lists of candidates.
In the last week of the campaign, HDZ president Ante Jelavic slammed
the international community, proclaimed the "death of the
federation" as the "Muslim entity", and announced the "beginning of
the struggle for the freedom of the Croat people."
HDZ expects to win a minimum 70 percent of the Bosnian Croat vote,
but National Democratic Institute researches indicate HDZ will be a
minor party on the federal level, with a maximum ten percent of the
entire vote.
The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) focused its campaign on
intimidating the Bosniak electoral body by announcing the "return
of Communists." Its main messages to the voters were that it was the
only party capable of protecting the Bosniaks' authentic interests
and that everything worthy achieved in the past was the merit of its
members.
Forecasts say SDA might face major failure as it seems very unlikely
that it will win more than 20 percent of the vote in the federation.
It is supposed SDA will lose power in two of the economically
strongest cantons, Sarajevo and Tuzla, where Zlatko Lagumdzija's
Social Democratic Party (SDP) is expected to sweep the vote.
SDP might win more than 30 percent of the vote in the federation, and
20 percent in the state parliament.
Forecasts say Haris Silajdzic's Party for BH might win about ten
percent of the vote.
The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) is increasingly more influential
among Bosnian Serbs, and will probably remain the individually
strongest party in the Serb republic's assembly. If SDS will
succeed in forming a government depends on post-electoral
cooperation between Mladen Ivanic's Party of Democratic Progress
and Milorad Dodik's Party of Independent Social Democrats. Both
enjoy between 15 and 17 percent of the vote and can beat SDS only in
the form of a coalition.
The run for the Serb entity's president is largely uncertain. SDS'
Mirko Sarovic is counting on victory, but the preferential voting
system raises Dodik's chances to replace the prime minister's with
the presidential seat.
(hina) ha jn