Bosnians Split on Whether to Unify
By AIDA CERKEZ-ROBINSON
Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/AMEL EMRIC
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SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Bosnians
appeared sharply split Monday in key elections on the country's future,
reflecting the deep ethnic divisions that persist more than a decade after the
country's civil war.
In Sunday's election, Muslim Bosniaks and
Catholic Croats supported politicians who want to unify the Balkan nation,
according to a partial count, while Serbs backing a candidate whose party
advocates ethnic division.
The vote was Bosnia's attempt to decide who
should lead the country as it tries to free itself from the ethnic divisions
that remain from its 1992-95 war and move toward European Union
membership.
Since the end of the war, important decisions
have been made by an international administrator. But that office recently
announced it will close next year if newly elected leaders find ways to put in
place reforms that will bring the country closer to joining the
EU.
Voters cast their ballots Sunday for a state
parliament and the country's three-member presidency, as well as leaders of the
two mini-states - a president and parliament of the Serb republic and a
president and parliament of the Bosniak-Croat federation, as well as parliaments
of the federation's 10 cantons.
With up to 50 percent of the vote counted,
officials said it appeared that Nebojsa Radmanovic - whose party chief recently
proposed a referendum that would allow Serb territories to secede - will
represent Orthodox Christian Serbs in Bosnia's three-member
presidency.
Based on the partial count, they said Haris
Silajdzic, a strong advocate of a united Bosnia, won election to the Muslim
Bosniak seat, and that Ivo Miro Jovic would be re-elected as the Croat
representative.
The German diplomat who is the top international
administrator in Bosnia said the election went well.
"One must give these people a chance now,"
Christian Schwarz-Schilling told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday. "One
should not bring these parties into disrepute for being in part
nationalist."
The race for the Croat seat was close. The
election commission announced hours after polls closed, that Jovic of the Croat
Democratic Union had 11.84 percent, narrowly ahead of Social Democrat Zeljko
Komsic, who had 11.41 percent in an incomplete count.
However, votes from a major Bosnian city
traditionally favoring the Social Democrats had not been submitted in time and
Komsic announced that according to his party's count, he has won the seat of the
Croat presidency member.
Jovic admitted Monday that Komsic may have
won.
Muslim Bosniaks, the largest ethnic group,
generally back a united country, as do their Roman Catholic Croat allies. Their
ultimate hope is that Bosnia - currently divided between a Bosniak-Croat
federation and a Serb republic - will join the EU when its political and
economic reforms are completed.
But many Serbs still cling to beliefs that
sparked the war - namely, that their half of the country can secede and become
independent.
The complex political setup is confusing even
for Bosnians, but was a compromise reached in the Dayton peace agreement that
ended the war. Up to 200,000 people were killed and 1 million were driven from
their homes during that conflict.
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