BOSNIA: Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, has urged Bosnian leaders to push through vital reforms amid rising ethnic tension ahead of Sunday's elections.
Mr Solana said Bosnia's Muslim, Serb and Croat politicians had to fulfil a promise to unify its ethnically divided police force, if it was to move towards EU membership and escape the legacy of the 1992-1995 war that killed 200,000 people.
"A political agreement reached in October 2005 has to be fully respected and the plan on police reform . . . has to be implemented," Mr Solana told Bosnia's Dnevni Avaz newspaper.
A deal on unifying the police force allowed Bosnia to start talks with Brussels on a deal that is a first step towards eventual EU membership. However, implementation has stalled amid growing antagonism between leaders of the country's ethnic groups.
Bosnian Serb leaders oppose the unified police force, as they do most measures aimed at strengthening the central state and weakening the two regions - Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat federation - created under the Dayton peace deal.
The majority Muslim population wants powers taken from the regions and given to a stronger central state, and say Republika Srpska was created by Serb ethnic cleansing.
The minority Croats want their rights protected and favour either a unified state or the creation of a separate, ethnic-Croat area within a three-region Bosnian federation.
Fearful of being outnumbered by Muslims in a unified Bosnia, local Serb leaders have threatened to bid for independence if the autonomous provinces are dissolved.
Bosnia's complex political framework makes for a cumbersome and costly bureaucracy and an elaborate electoral system that will grind into action on Sunday.
Voters will choose the three members of Bosnia's joint presidency - a Croat, a Muslim and a Serb - and deputies in the central parliament from 47 parties, eight coalitions and 11 independent candidates.
They will also elect new parliaments in the Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska.
The vote is given added significance by plans to withdraw the international envoy to Bosnia next year, abolishing his role as ultimate overseer of the country and giving it a chance to function on its own - with Nato and EU peacekeepers.