ILOK LOCAL GOVT, DEPUTY MAYOR ELECTED, SDSS MEMBERS LEAVE SESSION

ILOK, June 20 (Hina) - The Town Council of Ilok, a town in UN- administered eastern Croatia, on Friday elected a 13-member local government and a deputy mayor of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party. The post of second deputy mayor, intended for a member of the Serb Independent Democratic Party (SDSS), remained empty as Serb councillors walked out of the session after their demand that there should be only one deputy mayor and that he should be from the SDSS ranks, had been rejected. The local government consists of ten Croats, two Serbs and one Slovak. The HDZ has 20 councillors on the Town Council while the SDSS has six. Justifying their demand for one deputy mayor from their party, SDSS councillors said that Serbs accounted for 75 per cent of the current population of Ilok. Secretary Zeljko Djerdj dismissed the allegation, saying that the ethnic composition of the town's population was now significantly different and that exiled Croats were also citizens of that town. He recalled that Ilok's ethnic makeup had been changed by force in 1991. Addressing the session as a guest, HDZ member of the Croatian parliament Petar Cobankovic said that the HDZ could elect a mayor and only one deputy thanks to elections results, but that nevertheless it ceded one seat for deputy mayor to the SDSS. "The HDZ needs a deputy mayor because the mayor will be working in Ilok while the deputy will deal with the problem of displaced persons in other areas of Croatia," Cobankovic said. Cobankovic said that SDSS leader Vojislav Stanimirovic had agreed with such a solution in an unofficial conversation. SDSS councillors told reporters after they walked out that they would not attend Town Council sessions anymore. Council chairman Vlatko Cobankovic expressed regrets over the departure of the SDSS councillors, saying that he hoped that they would soon resume work in the local government. "We don't want tensions to increase," he stressed. Addressing the councillors at the end of the session, Mayor Stipan Kraljevic called on displaced people to return "without waiting for the restoration of Croatian authority" because "Croatian government is already in Ilok." "If the mayor can enter the town, then anyone else can as well," he said. (hina) rm vm 201826 MET jun 97