The Bosniak coalition ‘My address: Srebrenica’ called for domestic and international institutions to “find a solution on the special status of Srebrenica” in the Constitution and election law changes that would be based on the “pre-genocide census,” announcing that it is considering whether to run in the repeated local election at all.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) decided to annul the November 15 election results for 26 out of 28 polling stations in Srebrenica as well as 89 out of a total of 108 polling stations in the town of Doboj.
The institution discussed allegations of numerous irregularities regarding the voting process and determined that people without valid BiH documents were allowed to vote. Dozens of such cases were reported at several polling stations.
Representatives of Serb ethnic parties said the decision was illegal, with the Presidency Chairman and leader of the ruling party in the Serb-majority Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Milorad Dodik, calling it a plot by CEC and Bosniak political leadership.
After the BiH Court rejected appeals against the deicision on Wednesday, Srebrenica mayor Mladen Grujicic, who was the joint candidate of Serb parties in the town, said the decision shows that the semi-autonomous RS entity should secede from Bosnia.
“The calls from the mayor of Srebrenica, Mladen Grujicic, for the secession of RS is the last drop that will surely open a new page in the political activities of Bosniaks in Srebrenica gathered in the initiative ‘My address: Srebrenica’,” the statement of the My Address: Srebrenica coalition said.
Sadik Ahmetovic, President of the Election Headquarters of the coalition, said that “for years, Bosniaks in RS and Srebrenica have suffered enormous injustice, discrimination and persecution from RS institutions, such as the ban on the Bosnian language, persecution by the police, disregard for international court rulings, wiretapping and interception of conversations, denial of genocide” and argued that “a call coming from Srebrenica, a town that was under UN protection and in which the crime of genocide was committed against Bosniaks, for the RS to go down the path of secession, gives us full right as well as our moral obligation to open a new page of our actions and ask the question: is there even a purpose to vote in the repeated election or participate in what is seemingly a democracy?”
The coalition called on “all domestic and international institutions in our country to initiate a dialogue and find a solution on the special status of Srebrenica within the BiH Constitution” and amendments to the Srebrenica Election Law “based on a pre-genocide census that will permanently define the position of Srebrenica” in the Constitution to “satisfy the minimum of justice necessary for better relations of all citizens of the municipality of Srebrenica and overall relations in our country,” Ahemtovic said.
The coalition’s mayoral candidate, Alija Tabakovic, told N1 that he will probably complain to the Constitutional Court over the voting ballots reaching Bosnian citizens abroad too late, arguing that some voters only received the ballot 20 days after the election.
“Someone barred and disabled them from voting, that is a crime,” he said, arguing that the CEC did not respond to the problem adequately.
“This must be fixed for the future. Some 800 of our voters were not able to vote,” he said.
Tabakovic also said the coalition is considering whether to even participate in the repeated election.
“We came across information that police agencies were eavesdropping on our conversations and meetings. We are under repression, they are spying on us, they are intercepting us, our activists are being detained, we do not have democratic rights,” he alleged.
He said that Grujicic reacted this way because “this is the first time that the Court of BiH did not rule according to Grujicic’s will.”
“He wants a new war, a new genocide. This is a blow to the constitutional order of BiH. If the situation was different, he would have been detained, and the CEC would have punished Grujicic by banning him from running in the election due to his very dangerous political attitudes,” Tabakovic said.
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