A lawmaker from the southern city of Mostar, where no election took place for the past 12 years due to political bickering, told N1 on Monday that she can hardly wait for someone else but the nationalist parties to take over the city, although chances are slim.
After more than a decade, the two ruling parties in the divided city – the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and the Bosniak Party for Democratic Action (SDA) – agreed recently to hold elections in the city after they argued for years about how this should be conducted.
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Lawmaker Lana Prlic, from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), said she can “hardly wait” for someone else to take over Mostar and allow it to “go forward.”
“We were all thrilled that there would be elections in Mostar, but citizens are getting increasingly aware of what this (agreed) model brings – an advantage to national parties operating in only one part of the city. This puts those who are seeking votes throughout the Mostar area in a much more difficult position,” Prlic said.
The upcoming election in Mostar will effectively be a “referendum” where citizens will show if they are in favour of nationalist or civic political parties, she said.
“I am 27 years old and this is the first time I will vote in Mostar,” she said.
“As long as Mostar is divided in two, as long we have five utility companies while the city remains dirty, as long as we don’t have a sports hall, don’t realise projects and as long as citizens don't have a better quality life, I’m afraid that there will be no progress,” she said.
Prlic pointed out that young people are disappointed and that until electronic voting is introduced, there will be no progress in the overall election process in the country.
“We were brutally robbed (of votes) because every bag that was opened two years ago did not match the number of votes in the first report,” Prlic said of the 2018 general election in Bosnia.
