World

Bosnian Hardliners May Lose Seats

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 10, 2000 / 7:32 PM EST / CBS

A hard-line Croat party threatened Thursday to boycott all government institutions unless authorities reverse a decision to disqualify 13 of its candidates for breaking rules during last weekend's Bosnian election.

Bosnia has been divided into a Bosnian Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat Federation since the ethnic war that tore it apart in the early 1990s, and politics here have been dominated by hard-line ethnic parties.

The election commission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe removed the candidates of the Croat Democratic Union, or HDZ, from seats they apparently won in national and regional legislatures during Saturday's balloting.

Before the election, the Croat Democratic Union party had been demanding a separate Croat ministate similar to the one that the 1995 Dayton accords — which ended the Bosnian wars — authorized for Bosnian Serbs.

International officials, who administer this country under the Dayton Peace Agreement, also took similar action against three smaller parties, including the reformist Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina of former Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic.

However, the move against the Croat party was considered more serious because more of its candidates were disqualified and because the party wields considerable influence among the country's Croat community.

"If the Provisional Election Commission of the OSCE mission fails to withdraw its decisions, the HDZ asserts it would not participate in the formation of new governments at any level," the Croat party said in a statement.

It claimed the OSCE had disregarded the "will of the Croat people" and was attempting to impose "the worst form of a protectorate" through "the use of force."

The OSCE said Thursday 10 of the Croat candidates were removed from regional assemblies because the party held an unauthorized referendum on the day of the election asking Croats if they supported separatism. The OSCE considered that partisan campaigning, which is forbidden on election day.

The other three Croat candidates — one for the Bosnian national parliament and two for the Muslim-Croat Federation legislature — were removed because the HDZ violated campaign financing rules by "deliberately and systematically" obstructing an OSCE audit, the European organization's spokesman, Luke Zahner, said.

With about 90 percent of the votes counted from Saturday's balloting, the hard-line Serb party founded by indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic seems to have won the presidency in the Serb-run ministate and may end up controlling the Serb regional legislature.

In the Muslim-Croat Federation, parties committed to ethnic tolerance will probably increase their presence in both the regional and national parliament but not to the extent hoped for by Bosnia's international administrators. Nationalists got the remaining seats in the Muslim-Croat legislature.

Zahner said the action means te affected parties will not be able to have other candidates take the lost positions and instead the seats will remain vacant.

Also Thursday, former Bosnian prime minister Silajdzic told business leaders Thursday that better implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and involvement of the new U.S. administration are crucial to helping fix his nation's fragmented economy.

"The job is not finished. We need your help once again," Silajdzic told about 200 business leaders who gathered at a business exposition near Dayton International Airport.

Silajdzic has said that some of the most important points of the agreement have never been implemented, such as the return of refugees to their homes and a revitalization of Bosnia's prewar multiethnic society.

Phil Parker, director of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, said he thinks many U.S. businesses took a "wait-and-see attitude" on Bosnia, holding back investment to make sure the country did not return to a socialist system. But Parker said he believes U.S. investment is now increasing.