An hour after the polling stations closed in Srebrenica, a representative of the pro-Bosniak coalition ‘My Address Srebrenica’ told N1 that the election boycott was “successful” and that only the Bosniaks who were under pressure have voted on Sunday in the repeat election in this municipality.

According to Sadik Ahmetovic, only dozens of Bosniaks cast their ballots and those were the ones “who were pressured by the municipal institution.”

“We concluded they have some sort of fear, a pressure by current authorities in Srebrenica and they thought they might have some problems if they don’t vote. This confirms that the election process must be brought to such a level that the capacity of Bosniaks must be on the degree of how many Bosniaks want to vote, which was not the case,” he stressed.

After Bosnia’s top electoral authority annulled the results of the October 2020 local elections in Srebrenica and Doboj over reported irregularities and called the repeat vote, political parties grouped around the ‘My Address Srebrenica’ coalition announced the election boycott and called on their supporters not to vote.

Their main objection went towards the Central Election Commission for which they said it should have also annulled the mail-in ballots for the Srebrenica local election, also over alleged irregularities.

The Coalition’s mayoral candidate earlier said the Commission “deprived us of 800 mail-in ballots at the very start.”

A day prior to the election, the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina said the election boycotts were not “in the best interests of a healthy democracy,” and called on political parties to respect the Commission's decisions.