OSCE REPORTS VOTERS' REGISTRATION MANIPULATIONS IN BRCKO

SARAJEVO, 22 July (Hina) - The Election Appeals Commission, which is part of the Mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, dismissed as unfounded complaints by more than 3,000 persons who were not allowed to register in the voters' register in Brcko, northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, and imposed penalties on the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) because of manipulations in the registration procedure. #L# OSCE spokesman David Foley stated in Sarajevo Tuesday that the Appeals Commission had carefully considered the complaints of 3,688 persons and established that 3,270 of them were unfounded. The complaints had been filed mostly by the Bosnian Serbs who had not lived in Brcko before the war, but were currently accommodated in Brcko and wanted to be allowed to vote in Brcko. An investigation, conducted by OSCE experts showed that almost all of them had fake residence papers and refugee cards and that municipal bodies of authority, including the police, had participated in the issuing of those documents. 237 persons who had filed complaints could not even prove that they had Bosnian citizenship. Due to earlier reported irregularities and manipulations in the issuing of documents, the registration procedure in Brcko was annulled and repeated. According to Foley, the Election Appeals Commission had decided to remove the first, second and third candidate from the SDS list in Brcko. Those candidates would not be replaced by other candidates, he added. The president of the local election commission in Brcko, Teodor Gavric, was fined by OSCE with the withdrawal of one salary. (hina) rm 221429 MET jul 97