THE international organisation in charge of Bosnia's polls has decided to postpone local elections scheduled for late November due to a lack of co-operation by the parties, a western official said yesterday.
Earlier, diplomats said the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe was expected to announce within hours a decision to postpone the controversial local elections until next spring.
The elections are viewed as the last chance for Bosnia to be reunited after a war that divided the country into ethnic ghettoes. Voting for local officials could pave the way for refugees to return to communities they had been expelled from during 43 months of war.
But critics say polls held in a country with no freedom of movement, uncooperative nationalist leaders and unresolved disputes about voting by displaced people cannot be a success.
"We wholeheartedly welcome the decision to postpone municipal elections," said Mr Hrair Balian, head of the Sarajevo office of International Crisis Group.
Mr Balian said the polls would have been plagued by a lack of freedom of movement, the presence of war criminals and lack of a "credible start on reunification and repatriation of refugees".