ELECTIONS CONTINUE
AIM, SPLIT, July 12, 1996
There seems to be no end to the story of Mostar elections: the HDZ denied their regularity, the SDA contested their denial, the City Election Commission annulled the voting results from Bonn as there were 26 more voting slips than voters, the EU Ombudsman Constantine Zepos confirmed the results, including those from Bonn, stating that these irregularities did not influence the overall result, after which the HDZ instituted proceedings against Zepos before the Constitutional Court of B&H, announcing that it would not accept the election results even if the European Administrator for Mostar, Ricardo Peres Casado, declared them by a decree, and finally Casado did precisely that on Thursday night - issued a decree proclaiming the election results for the Mostar City Council and councils of six municipal communes.
After this, on Friday, the HDZ reiterated that it did not intend to recognize the Mostar election results, while the holder of the HDZ election list and Mayor of the west part of the city, Mijo Brajkovic, stated that he personally would not participate in the establishment of municipal and city authorities because of illegal acts, and emphasized that the HDZ was not willing to accept the extension of the European administration mandate in Mostar, which expires on January 26, if it continued to violate agreements and laws.
This was the first round of Mostar "parliamentary" crisis which started even before the establishment of the City Council and six municipal communes. These were to be constituted two days after Casado's decree, but it is hard to believe that this will happen considering the HDZ's stance.
Apart from the disputable Bonn elections, in its attacks on the election principles the HDZ also mentioned the late submission of election lists, loss of a bag with six thousand voting slips in Bern, and the voting of same voters at the two polling stations at the same time, loss of over one thousand voting papers in the local community of Stari grad, which is under the Bosniac control, and so on, to end it all with the "essential fact" that the European Union did not abide by the rules it itself had laid down.
It is clear to everyone that Mostar elections will not be exactly a model of a free and democratic declaration of the will of the people, starting from the demonization of candidates of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian united opposition in the Croat "state" media, while these same media remained closed for them, up to the fact that out of 40,000 exiled Mostar denizens, i.e. 40 percent of the total number of voters, only one fourth could vote either in Mostar itself, or at four polling stations abroad. But, the HDZ was the one which insisted that the elections be held at the originally set time - in May - while the SDA thought that conditions were still not ripe since according to the original electoral rules precisely the exiled inhabitants of Mostar would not be able to vote.
The post-election ill-will of the Croatian Democratic Union, whose officials in their first reactions after the elections voiced their satisfaction over the fact that the elections in the city were held in a civilized atmosphere, as well as because of their absolute victory in the Croatian national corps, came only later when the things cooled down and they had a better look at the election results.
It is true that the HDZ won all 16 places envisaged for the Croats in the City Council, but it is also true that in contrast to the SDA, it won nothing else. The SDA which, unlike the HDZ, formed a coalition with the small parties and called its list "For a United Mostar", also won 16 Bosniac places, as well as five places envisaged for the Serbs and members of other nationalities. In addition to four Serbs from the "United Mostar" list, Vladimir Fink, a Bosniac-Catholic by nationality, from that same list, was elected to the City Council. Anka Capuder, a Yugoslav (!) from the HDZ list, had no such luck. The difference in their political destinies, as well as in the composition of the City Council of Mostar, lies in a minimal difference between the two leading Mostar lists ("For a United Mostar" list won precisely 1,500 votes more than the HDZ one), but also in the positions on these lists, as the SDA's Serbs ranked higher that those of the HDZ, as well as in the fact that the HDZ candidates for the City Council were less successful than the SDA's, so that the difference had to be filled from the "City list".
Somewhat complicated, but true. And it is precisely the annullment of the Bonn elections, as demanded by the HDZ as well as the City Election Commission, where over 4,000 people voted, of which 3,200 for the east Mostar list "For a United Mostar", that could reverse the results of the complex Mostar electoral arithmetic.
True, irrespective of the relative victory of the SDA and the parties that have joined it, and the Serbian Civil Council which is active on the left bank, this will not mean much when the City Council becomes operational. Namely, in order to elect a Lord Mayor, in this case, Safet Orusevic, one third of representatives of each national group has to give its approval. Translated into political language it means that the HDZ and SDA have to reach consensus for the City Council to be constituted, which is impossible to expect at the moment when the HDZ contesting even the elections. It is only to be expected that the Council will not be constituted within two weeks, as envisaged by the City Statute.
But, it is logical to ask why is it taking HDZ so long to accept the election results, which at the time it joined the election race, it knew would not be a paragon of regularity when a single important decision of the City Council cannot be passed without the HDZ? The key lies in the election results for the communal councils which are not so much in the center of media attention.
While the SDA got a large majority of votes and mandates in the communes on the east, Bosniac, bank - Sjever, Stari grad and Jugoistok - on the Croatian side of the city they won by a narrow margin. True, the HDZ has won a majority in west side communities, but not such that would guarantee it an unobstructed rule. In the Jug commune the HDZ got 12 and the SDA seven mandates; in the commune of Jugozapad the HDZ got 13 and the SDA 8 delegates with additional 4 delegates of Serbian nationality from the list of Dragan Ziga, while in the commune of Zapad the SDA had nine and the HDZ only ten mandates. Therefore, what because of the centralization of the power, what on account of the annullment of poor results, particularly in the commune of Zapad, the HDZ already announced the integration of three communes on the west side.
The HDZ is an absolute winner among the Croats in Mostar, but not in the Croatian west part of Mostar, and particularly not in the city as a whole. The HDZ positioned its electoral pieces not fully understanding Mostar electoral arithmetic. While the east side propaganda "For a United Mostar" encouraged people from the left bank to vote on the right one, the HDZ philosophy of the divided city did not stimulate the Croats to go and vote near their former homes on the east side. That is one of the reasons for such a narrow-margin victory of the HDZ in west communes and the SDA landslide in east communes, naturally, compared to the previous national picture of communal councils in conformity with the national composition of the population in these territories in 1991.
When the HDZ realized its mistakes there was nothing else it could do but pretend to be a political virgin and insist on election irregularities and exert pressure for holding new elections in Mostar in September. For the time being Casado and Zepos are ignoring the HDZ requests and thereby, as catalysts of a kind, encouraging the process of the final division of the city after the elections which, at least to some degree, should have contributed to the rapprochement of the two banks, at least by means of a joint City Council. Casado is already in a tight spot in which Koschnik has been when last February, after the decision on the establishment of a (large) central city zone, he had a conflict with the HDZ and denizens of the west Mostar, after which his credibility decreased with the assistance of the European Union. Irrespective of the HDZ motives, the European arbiters of Mostar lost sight of the fact that not a single problem can be solved in that city off-hand - by a decree. Just like the referendum on the independence of B&H in 1992 increased the speed of the wheels of war, thus with the local stubbornness and the carelessness of the world the history may repeat itself in this new democratic opportunity for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
GORAN VEZIC