BOSNIAN HDZ APPEALS OVER MOSTAR ELECTION RULES BREACHES TO OSCE

MOSTAR, Oct 13 (Hina) - The Mostar city council's composition with a ratio of 14 seats of the SDA-led coalition to 10 seats of the HDZ is unacceptable for the HDZ BiH (Bosnia's Croatian Democratic Union) as it does not reflect the real situation in Mostar, an HDZ official has said. The HDZ cantonal branch in Mostar would demand from the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) to change the ratio, Rade Bosnjak said on Monday in this southern Bosnian city. The HDZ substantiated its complaints by the number of ballots this party won at the September local elections. In Mostar, the HDZ mustered 32,518 votes, whereas the coalition including the Moslem-led Party of Democratic Action (SDA) gathered a total of 20,848 ballots. The HDZ needed twice the number of votes which the coalition with the SDA got for one seat at the city council. According to these figures, 3,250 people voted for one councillor of the HDZ, whereas only 1,400 people should cast their ballots for one councillor of the coalition with the SDA, Bosnjak added. According to local HDZ committees' assessments, the ratio should have been 15 HDZ councillors to nine (9) councillors of the SDA coalition. But this did not happen as the OSCE that supervised the 13-14 September municipal elections, applied special election rules only in Mostar. Bosnjak claimed that those rules complied neither with the Mostar transitional statute although it was harmonised with the Dayton agreement nor with OSCE general election rules adopted for all Bosnian municipalities. That's why HDZ appealed to the OSCE appeals commission. It also appealed against violations of "election rules for Mostar". Bosnjak voiced satisfaction with HDZ election results in the Bosnian Croat-Moslem Federation's Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, where it won elections in eight out of 13 municipalities. (hina) jn mš 131728 MET oct 97