After more than a decade, the City of Mostar got the new City Council and is a step closer to get a new Mayor.

It will be either Zlatko Guzin of the Coalition for Mostar, a group of parties that among other includes the main Bosniak ethnic party in the country, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), or Mario Kordic of the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH).

The third candidate, Irma Baralija of the left-leaning BH Bloc coalition, was eliminated in the first round of the vote. Fifteen councillors supported Kordic, 11, gave their votes to Guzin and five to Baralija. Five councillors abstained from the vote.

The two candidates will proceed to the second round of the vote.

But, it won't happen before Wednesday when the session will resume.

The city councillors named Ivan Zelenika of the Croat Caucus the new City Council President, while Salem Maric (the Bosniak Caucus) and Velibor Milivojevic (the Serb Caucus) were named as his deputies.

Zelenika won 16 votes followed by Maric who won ten and Milivojevic two votes. Seven councillors abstained from the vote.

Bosnia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) confirmed the December 2020 local election results in the southern city of Mostar at the beginning of January.

This was the first election Mostar had in 12 years and the whole process was blocked due to political disagreements.

In 2010, the Constitutional Court ruled parts of the Election Law for Mostar unconstitutional and parties that won the 2008 election, the HDZ BiH and the SDA, could not reach an agreement on how to amend it until last year.

They finally reached an agreement in June last year.

An unusual detail marked the Friday session that was otherwise special since the City Council of Mostar is being constituted for the first time after more than a decade.

Boska Cavar, the councillor in isolation, presumably due to coronavirus infection suspicion, took an oath via Viber. After the councillor was done with the online call, she was visited by an ad-hoc commission made of three members, who took Cavar's written signature.