Mostar election after 12 years

For twelve years, the citizens of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian city of Mostar have not been able to vote. Thus, Mostar is the only city in Europe in which the right on elections at the local level has been systematically denied. Now there is an agreement between those very extremist representatives who have been preventing the people from going to the polls for years. The deal was also supported by the EU – and the citizens of Mostar are asking indignantly why they were not involved in the political decision-making processes. And why questionable deals are promoted by the state institutions. The agreement, or so the accusations, is only cementing the destructive ethno-nationalism in the country.

Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council Bodo Weber says that the agreement reached is not in for the future of Mostar or the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After not having been held for 12 years, the elections in Mostar on December 20 will be a historical event in the sense of reviving democracy in this city.

Marin Bago, a prominent activist from Mostar, submitted the list of independent candidates “Pravo na Grad” [“Right to the City”] for the Local Elections in Mostar, planned to be held on 20 December 2020, to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) today.

Regarding the “political agreement on the amendments to the Electoral Law of BiH” reached in June between the leaders of two political parties, Bakir Izetbegović (SDA) and Dragan Čović (HDZ), so that after 12 years finally elections can be held in Mostar, the High Representative in BiH rushed to say how that was a “celebration of democracy”.  To a bystander, it looked as if a heavy load was taken off his mind, so that now one can continue under that flag as well. Of course, the conclusions of the two party leaders were agreed in the presence of representatives of the international community, then adopted by the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH at the very last second – less than a month before the deadline imposed by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by the judgement in the case of Ms. Irma Baralija. This citizen of Mostar sued Bosnia and Herzegovina because no elections have been held in that city since 2008!

Ljubo Bešlić has been the Mayor of the City of Mostar since December 2004, so for almost 16 years. It is not known in the history of recent democracy in Europe, probably also the whole world, that someone held an office for so long just because no elections were held. He told Interview.ba that during all those years he intended to resign countless times. But, the question was, he added, to whom to hand over the mandate.

In 2018, Irma Baralija from Mostar filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights against Bosnia and Herzegovina, for violating human rights by failing to hold elections in Mostar for 12 years. In late 2019, she received a judgement which confirmed that the rights of the residents of Mostar guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. As of that moment, leaders of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) launched an active quest for a solution to the Mostar ‘case’. They reached a ‘political agreement’ in June this year, allowing elections but, according to many experts, no substantive changes. For Interview.ba, Baralija speaks about the nationalists’ ‘plan from hell’ for Mostar, how much the agreement damages the civic parties, how the city list of 17 members dropped to 13, and whether it is time for women to remove men from power... 

After 12 long years, the ballot boxes for electing political representatives may be open again in Mostar on 20 December this year, following the 18 June signing of the ‘political agreement’ on elections by leaders of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The recent history of Mostar has seen numerous changes to the election system, and only four elections held since 1995 until today.

After 12 years of deprivation of each citizen of the fundamental human right to elect and stand at elections in a democratic society, a political agreement was reached in the city of Mostar on 18 June, between leaders of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), Bakir Izetbegović, and of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Dragan Čović, on holding the elections in this city. Thus, Mostar is no longer a ‘case’, at least on paper. Professor Suad Arnautović, Ph. D., member of the Central Election Commission, spoke to Interview.ba about reasons for scheduling the Mostar elections for December, unlike other places in BiH, what changes have been made through the recent political agreement, can a Serb, or a Croat like Željko Komšić (whom the HDZ deems an illegitimate representative) become mayor of Mostar, whether all the agreed items can be effected by the deadline, and whether we will have local elections this year or not.