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Mostar Administrator Gives Approval to September Vote
By Davor Huic
"My advice to the conference would be to hold them," Casado told Reuterss.
While the United States and their European partners are eager to go through with the first Bosnian poll since 1990, independent human right observers warn that minimal conditions for free and democratic elections are not met.
According to the Helsinki Watch, a human rights watchdog, there is still no freedom of movement for all in Bosnia, while a vast majority of refugees have not been allowed to visit their abandoned homes on territory held by other factions, let alone re-occupy them.
On top of that, Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, indicted for war crimes by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, have not been handed over. Casado said his role at the Florence meeting, called to review progress in implementing the Dayton peace deal which ended 43 months of war in Bosnia, was purely "informative."
But his position that the elections must be held despite less-than-ideal conditions was echoed by the EU coordinator for Mostar, Italy's Alfredo Matacotta Cordella. "I think we have to go through with the (September) elections. Conditions are not perfect but we have to start from somewhere," Matacotta told Reuterss.
"The elections we had in Italy after the war in 1946 were not perfect either," he added, referring to the first poll after the collapse of the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini and the end of a bitter partisan conflict. Both men said that municipal elections in Mostar on June 30 would be the real test for a countrywide poll in the autumn. "The Mostar elections could be important for the whole of Bosnia," Casado said. "The conditions are not optimal. It won't be the perfect election. But it will be the first step towards building confidence between the parties," he added.
Some 90,000 Muslim, Croat and Serb voters will elect the city assembly and local administrations in six municipalities.
The Mostar elections, originally scheduled for May 31, were postponed after the Muslim authorities of the city, which is divided between Muslims and Croats, demanded that refugees living abroad have a right to vote. The issue was resolved through high-level talks mediated by Casado.
He said he was moderately optimistic that Mostar elections would be a success, partly because of steady improvement in freedom of movement. "How can we have the elections in Bosnia in September if we don't succeed in Mostar?" Matacotta asked.
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FLORENCE, Italy, June 11 (Reuters) - The European Union administrator of Mostar said on Wednesday that post-war Bosnian general elections scheduled for September should proceed as planned despite doubts about how fair they would be. Spain's Ricardo Perez Casado spoke in Florence a day ahead of an international ministerial conference which, among other issues, is expected to set an exact date for the polls, due to take place no later than September 14.
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Berserkistan, June 4 · Major Powers: Elections Must Stay on Schedule
Berserkistan, June 3 · Voter Registration Begins in Bosnia
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Berserkistan, June 2 · Bosnia: Fair Elections, but Not at Any Price
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