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High Representative Delays Bosnian Election Announcement SARAJEVO, Apr 19, 2002 -- (dpa) The international community high representative in Bosnia late Thursday postponed announcement of Bosnia's general elections, just two hours before the notification deadline expired. After the parliaments of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Moslem-Croat and Serbian entities failed to adopt certain constitutional reforms that would have further altered the election rules, Austrian diplomat Wolfgang Petritsch decided to reduce the statutory time period for notification to be sent by the Election Commission to all competent authorities from 170 days prior to the election, as set by the law, to 169 days. The high representative's decision, according to his office, would apply only to the elections scheduled for October 5, 2002, as the first elections to be organized and held by the Bosnian authorities. The previous elections in Bosnia were administered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The forthcoming Bosnian general elections were planned to be held in accordance with constitutional reforms proposed early this month in the so-called Sarajevo Agreement, signed by three Bosnian reform parties, out of nine parties that negotiated the reforms. Under the Sarajevo Agreement, the parliaments of Bosnia's two entities - the Moslem-Croat Federation and the Serb-run Srpska Republic - were supposed to adopt amendments to the entities' constitutions. Based on a two-year old decision by Bosnia-Herzegovina's Constitutional Court, the agreement was designed to give the same rights on all Bosnia territory to the country's three ethnic groups - Croats, Moslems and Serbs. Neither the Bosnian nationalist Croat Democratic Union (HDZ) nor the Moslem Party of Democratic Action (SDA) signed the agreement, nor most Bosnian Serb political parties. Postponing the elections notification deadline by one day, the high representative gave an opportunity to Bosnian political parties to reconsider their standings, change their earlier decisions and adopt the constitutional reforms, so that the October 5 elections could be officially declared on Friday. The office of the high representative did not comment on possible measures if Bosnian political parties that hold the seats at the entities' parliaments again fail to adopt the reforms. (C)2002. dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
