Residents of central Bosnian Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje municipality protested on Sunday, claiming that the election watchdog made it impossible for the Croat candidate to become mayor by deciding to suspend the counting of part of mail-in ballots.
A young newly elected councillor from the Croat Coalition, which brings together Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and HDZ 1990, Stanko Kustura, said the protest was a response to the non-transparent process of implementing the results of the local election.
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According to him, the protestors demand the Central Election Commission (CIK) responds to this event and publish a report on the mail-in ballots and only then will they recognise the possible election defeat.
“We demand an explanation for every possibly rejected mail-in ballot and a recount of all mail-in ballots,” Kustura said.
According to CIK's official results, the difference between the official winner of the local elections in Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, Sead Causevic of the leading Bosniak Party – Democratic Action Party (SDA), and Drazen Matisic, a joint HDZ BiH and HDZ 1990 candidate, was only 130 votes.
Bosnia held its local elections on November 15 which resulted in a surprising victory of the opposition in two of the country's three major centres – Sarajevo and Banja Luka. In Sarajevo, the SDA lost control in almost all municipalities and in Banja Luka, the main centre-right Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) lost the position of mayor of that town.
The third major centre, Mostar, will hold its elections in December.
