OSCE OFFICIAL VERY SATISFIED WITH ORGANISATION OF BOSNIAN ELECTION

SARAJEVO, Nov 12 (Hina) - General election held in Bosnia- Herzegovina on Saturday have been one of the most successfully- organised since the conclusion of the 1995 Dayton peace accords, assessed the head of the OSCE mission in Bosnia on Saturday night upon the closing of polling stations. The OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) mission head, Robert Barry told a news conference in Sarajevo that the voting had proceeded without any incident and he described the turnout as relatively high. We can now state that the turnout among the 2.5 million voters was significantly over 50 percent, and it is possible that it was approximate or higher than the turnout registered at the April municipal elections when some 70 percent of the electorate went to the polls, Barry added. The U.S. diplomat said the counting of votes sent from abroad by mail started immediately upon the closing of the polling stations and votes cast in the country and those sent were being counted simultaneously. The OSCE will announce first preliminary returns on Monday. Final results will not definitely be available before 17 November - the deadline for the arrival of votes from abroad, he explained. Barry said some cases of the violation of the electoral rules and regulations had been noticed during the voting and had been forwarded to the Election Appeals Sub-Commission (EASC) - an independent judicial body - to consider them. This referred to an attempt to organise an election fraud at polling stations in the eastern town of Srebrenica - where voters should decide on a new make-up of the municipal council - and to a referendum organised by the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia- Herzegovina (HDZ BiH). We have viewed this unauthorised referendum as a serious violation of election rules and regulations, which explicitly forbid any activities of political parties during the ban on electioneering, the OSCE official said. He added that the HDZ leadership turned to be a kind of Politburo usurping the right to represent all Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I do not believe that Bosnian Croats have delegated their right on decision-making to the Politburo which introduces itself as the Croatian people's parliament, Barry said. It is up to the EASC to make a final decision on whether and what kind of punitive measures will be taken against the HDZ, and this decision can be expected by Wednesday. In the opinion of the OSCE and the Office of the High Representative the most important task will now be to implement the election results in the practice. (hina) ms