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Bosnians vote today, change uncertain

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November 11, 2000 

SARAJEVO, NOV 10 (AP) - Following democratic changes in neighboring Croatia and Yugoslavia, Bosnians choose leaders Saturday in a ballot international officials hope will weaken the grip of hardline parties that led the country into war eight years ago.

Victory by candidates committed to the multicultural goals of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement could speed the day when the 20,000 multinational peacekeepers return home without triggering a new conflict here.

However, it is uncertain whether Bosnia-Herzegovina will follow the trend of its Balkan neighbors which voted out those responsible for the devastating wars of the last decade.

A Croat party once backed by the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and parties supported by ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remain deeply entrenched in Bosnia, even though their patrons have left the political stage.

Those parties have reacted to democratization in their former sponsor states by digging in their heels on such issues as allowing refugees to return to homes in areas under hardline control.

Within the Muslim community, the Social Democratic Party of management professor Zlatko Lagumdzija and the Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina of former Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic appear likely to oust the Muslim-oriented Party for Democratic Action from the dominant position it held during and immediately after the 1992-1995 war.

The new parties are reaching out to non-Muslims, have drafted plans to transform the national economy along Western lines and have pledged to work for the multiethnic, multicultural goals of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war.

Without cooperation from hardline Serb and Croat parties, however, it seems unlikely they can make much headway in parts of Bosnia controlled by non-Muslims. Instead, hardline ethnic parties have sought to persuade Muslims, Croats and Serbs that only they can protect their communities from losing their identity.

In Sarajevo, one poster shows Lagumdzija wearing a yarmulke in Jerusalem and touching the Wailing Wall, Judaism's holiest site. The poster was not signed by any party but the message was clear: Lagumdzija would threaten Muslim interests even though he shares their faith.

"We have urged the parties to focus on the issues which are important to the voters: jobs and unemployment, foreign investment and economic development, anti-corruption," said Sanela Tunovic-Becirevic, spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is overseeing the election.

However, for many ethnically-based parties, the main goal is to defend the divisions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, drawn up at the Dayton conference.

Dayton divided Bosnia into two autonomous ministates: the Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb republic. They are tied together by a federal parliament, a three-member presidency and other federal institutions, which barely function.

On Saturday, voters in both ministates will choose a federal parliament as well as officials in their own entities. For those in the Muslim-Croat Federation, that means selecting officials of 10 regional cantons and members of a federation parliament.

Serbs will also select a president and vice president of their ministate as well as members of their own local parliament.

Predicting the outcome with certainty is virtually impossible. A patchwork of agreements accepted by the United States and its allies to end the war and appease the three ethnic groups has produced Europe's most complicated electoral system. Even so, all surveys show the moderate Bosnian Serb prime minister, Milorad Dodik, trailing badly in the presidential race against Mirko Sarovic of the Serb Democratic Party, which was founded by indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Dodik's defeat would represent a setback for the United States, which provided millions of dollars and political muscle to help him marginalize Karadzic and his followers.

Despite a huge lead in the polls, however, Sarovic's party may still not end up in power. Muslims who were expelled from the Serb area during the war can vote in the Serb republic by absentee ballot. Absentee voters are believed to comprise about 20 percent of the electorate in the Serb part of Bosnia.

The Croats, meanwhile, have been lobbying for official status for their own, unauthorized ministate in southwestern Bosnia and have organized a referendum on election day, in which Croats will be asked whether they support "sovereignty of the Croat nation in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Croats represent only about 10 percent to 15 percent of Bosnia's 4.3 million people. However, to win Tudjman's support for peace agreements, the West agreed to guarantee the Croats a certain number of elected posts regardless of what Croat candidates could win on their own under a "one man, one vote" system.

Critics say that gives the Croats -- and particularly the hardline Croatian Democratic Union -- a disproportionate share of influence.

All that goes against the international goal of bringing the three rival ethnic groups together. Five years after Dayton, a country which was supposed to be moving toward unity has become a patchwork of three telephone networks, three electricity networks, three economic systems, three educational systems and a legal code almost no one understands.

"I think the divisions among us are getting deeper," said Bosnian Serb Prof. Miodrag Zivanovic. "What we need is a self-sustaining economy and a state that would function."