Dragan Covic, the head of the Croat National Assembly (HNS), an organisation made up of Bosnian Croat parties, urged top EU officials to react to the “electoral engineering” he argued pro-Bosniak parties and the Central Election Commission (CEC) conducted in the southern city of Mostar.
Mostar saw its first local election since 2008 were the result of a political agreement between Covic’s Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and the main Bosniak party in the country, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA).
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International officials, including those from the EU, praised the election as it is one of the 14 key priorities the European Commission outlined for BiH to implement in order to receive EU candidate status.
But Covic complained about the election process in a letter addressed to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, EU Enlargement Commissioner, Oliver Varhelyi, European Parliament Rapporteur for BiH, Paulo Rangel, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, David McAllister, and Chairman of the Delegation for relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, Romeo Franz.
He said that his party has repeatedly called on international officials and observers to help conduct elections in Mostar in line with European standards.
“We also called for their increased presence and attention on the election day as well as close monitoring of the work of the BiH Central Election Commission and warned against fictitious voter registrations for which concerns were expressed in a timely manner, noting that they could inappropriately affect the result,” he said.
Covic said that this was done in hope of helping to prevent manipulations.
“I am particularly saddened to inform you that it is now quite clear that the electoral engineering of (pro)Bosniak parties, supported by the activities of CEC, which operates in an illegal and illegitimate composition, is actively changing the electoral will of residents for their own political gain,” he said.
He noted that a recount was ordered for more than 46% of the total polling stations in the city, pointing to “night counting”, irregular counting and severe vote manipulation.
A dramatic difference between the figures published during the evening in the presence of observers and the figures officially published on the website www.izbori.ba was observed at a large number of polling stations, he said.
His letter further listed irregularities such as the blocking of the output of the results of the counting process following the closing of the polling stations, therefore providing a time frame for the consolidation and implementation of previously organized criminal proceedings.
He alleged a “scandalous” transfer of fictitious voters orchestrated by the Bosniak parties and the CEC to city areas with a predominantly Croat population in an attempt to illegally acquire mandates and influence the overall election outcome.
The HNS BiH filed criminal charges with the Prosecutor's Office of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, he said.
“This significantly disrupts relations and continues to destabilize political dialogue, which, although much needed, is now further disrupted, Covic concluded.
“We ask for the urgent involvement of international actors, partners, and friends and the involvement of all relevant institutions in shedding light on the events that, through their unsustainable, scandalous, and dangerous behaviour, hinder the stability and the European path of the City of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole and its inhabitants,” Covic appealed.
