UP TO 50 parties and 33 independent candidates will be seeking the votes of around 3.2 million voters in Bosnia's first post war elections on September 14th.
The head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Mr Flavio Cotti, announced in Vienna yesterday that the conditions were ready for the elections to take place across Bosnia Herzegovina in September.
Seven authorities will be elected for the two entities that make up the post war country the Sarajevo run Muslim Croat Federation and the Serbs' self declared Republika Srpska. The elections will be run on a proportional system. Cantonal elections are scheduled in the federation, which will elect a chamber of representatives, while a parliament and president are elected for the Republika Srpska.
At the national level, two common bodies will be elected. Firstly, a three member Bosnian presidency one Croat, one Serb, one Muslim. This should then nominate a chairman of the Council of Ministers to be approved by the directly elected House of Representatives.
Out of the 49 parties that have registered for the elections, 27 are based in the federation and 22 in the Republika Srpska. Only four parties the Democratic Action Party (SDA) of President Alija ketbegovic and three other parties based in the federation are taking part in all seven levels of the elections.
The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) of Dr Radovan Karadzic has registered for five levels. It has declined to name candidates for the parliamentary and cantonal elections in the federation.
The Bosnian sister party of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of President Franjo Tudjman is the main Croat party in Bosnia. It is taking part at five levels, standing aside from the elections to the national assembly and presidency of the Serb entity.
The voter list the subject of considerable controversy was compiled on the basis of the last, pre-war census in 1991. Rules were established by the OSCE's provisional electoral commission to allow refugees to vote where they lived before the conflict, if they so chose, by postal ballot if necessary, or where they live now if they so chose. This last rule has been criticised by Sarajevo as legitimising the deportations which became known as "ethnic cleansing".
. Fears of a fresh outbreak of fighting have risen sharply in Bosnia, with almost one person in two predicting a renewal of the conflict, according to an opinion poll published yesterday in the daily Oslobodjenje.
Forty six per cent of Bosnia's Muslim community expects fighting to flare up again once the Nato led peace force pulls out in December, with 53 per cent of Croats and 44 per cent of the Serbs feeling the same way.