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Early turnout appeared moderate in Bosnian polls

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November 12, 2000 

SARAJEVO (AP) - Bosnians chose national and regional leaders Saturday in an electoral showdown between reformers and hard-line ethnic nationalists who led the country to war eight years ago.

After Balkan neighbors Yugoslavia and Croatia shed their wartime leaderships, international administrators have been urging Bosnians to follow suit and elect pro-democracy candidates the officials hope will mend the nation's ethnic divisions.

Early turnout appeared moderate among the Muslim, Serb and Croat communities on Saturday.

Final results could take weeks. The main issue is whether Bosnians will turn to new leaders or cling to ethnically oriented parties that have held power since the start of a 3 1/2-year war in 1992.

As she prepared to cast in her ballot in a Muslim area of Sarajevo, Irena Blagovic, 60, said the hard-liners would lose. "It's time for them to lose," she said. "Ten years was more than enough."

In a separate, unauthorized vote, Croats were deciding whether to endorse moves by their hard-line leaders for Croat separatism - a move condemned by international officials who administer this country.

The president of Croatia, Stipe Mesic, also criticized the referendum and urged Bosnian Croats to cooperate with their fellow Bosnians. Mesic's comment stood in stark contrast to the unquestioning support his predecessor, the late President Franjo Tudjman, gave Bosnian Croats.

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the conflict, divided Bosnia-Herzegovina into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb republic, loosely tied together by a federal parliament, a three-member presidency and other federal institutions.

Voters in the two mini-states were choosing members of the federal parliament. Those in the Muslim-Croat Federation will also choose officials of 10 regional cantons and members of that mini-state's parliament. Bosnian Serbs will also select a president and vice president of their mini-state as well as members of their own local parliament.

"I hope that today the people of Bosnia are choosing the future and getting away from the past," said Zlatko Lagumdzija, head of the multiethnic Social Democratic Party and the clear favorite of the international administrators.

In Sarajevo, Lagumdzija's Social Democrats were expected to finish ahead of the Muslim-oriented Party of Democratic Action, which ran the Muslim government during the war. Its leader, Alija Izetbegovic, resigned as Muslim president last month.

In the Bosnian Serb ministate, Western-backed Prime Minister Milorad Dodik was believed training Vice President Mirko Sarovic of the hard-line Serb Democratic Party in the race for the presidency.

Sarovic's party was founded by indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic. Dodik has been strongly supported by the United States and its allies. His critics claim he has tolerated corruption and failed to deliver on promises to revive the economy.

Despite Sarovic's lead in the polls, his election is not assured. Muslims who were expelled from the Serb areas during the war can vote in the Serb republic by absentee ballot and few of them are expected to back Sarovic.

Muslim absentee voters are believed to comprise about 20 percent of the electorate in the Serb part of Bosnia.

In the Bosnian Serb town of Pale, about 14 kilometers (9 miles) east of Sarajevo, Predrag Lucic, 40, said he wanted the election to produce "change, a change of direction, change for the better."

Sarajevo student Vedad Arapovic, 23, said he decided to vote after seeing the confusion surrounding the U.S. presidential race.

"I never voted before," Arapovic said. "But for days, I've been watching what's going on America and how narrow the difference is. I bet many over there in Florida regret that they didn't vote."

Other voters were more skeptical.

"I don't expect anything," said Bosnian Serb voter Milorad Dokic, 50, in Pale. "Industry doesn't function, there is no economy and it won't get any better in the future."

Much attention has focused on the Social Democratic Party, led Lagumdzija. The Social Democrats are the only major party running in both Serb and Muslim-Croat areas and pledge to work for economic development and reconciliation.

Critics have branded the Social Democrats as "former communists" and have sought to portray Lagumdzija, 44, as a traitor to the Muslim community.

However, his party's final rally Thursday night in Sarajevo drew about 10,000 enthusiastic supporters, compared to less than 1,000 for the Party of Democratic Action, which led the Muslims through the war.