Eurasia Press & News
The southern Bosnian city of Mostar is facing and a rapidly worsening economic and social crisis brought on by intractable political bickering that has blocked the establishment of a new city government and adoption of its budget for more than five months.
The head of Mostar’s Red Cross, Alen Kajtaz, has warned that because of this situation all soup kitchens operating in the city have been left without provisions. “I hope that we will not be forced to shut down public soap kitchens, because if that happens I am afraid that some people will starve to death,” Kajtaz told reporters over the weekend.
“The political collapse, which is present in Mostar over the past five months, will inevitably spread to the economic and social sphere,” reported the influential Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz on Sunday, in an alarming article titled “Mostar threatened by famine”.
Protesting over the inability of their politicians to elect a city mayor more than five months after the last elections, local residents brought a donkey to demonstrations that they held last Thursday, proposing the animal be the city’s new mayor.
Despite growing concerns and protests from residents, local politicians have repeatedly failed to reach agreement over the city’s new mayor and government. The standoff is between the two strongest Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Croat parties – Party of Democratic Action and Croat Democratic Union – which both want the post of city’s mayor.
This situation has underscored the dangerously deteriorating political crisis which as affected the entire country for the past three years.
Local residents and media have demanded assistance from Bosnia’s top envoy and his Office of the High representative, the OHR. Although some media have said that OHR could call for extraordinary elections in Mostar and even punish local politicians for their arrogance, the OHR so far refrained from any direct actions and stuck to verbal warnings.
“The Office of the High Representative expresses deep dissatisfaction with yet another failure by the Mostar City Council to elect a mayor,” OHR said on Friday.
“Once again, the political parties seek to blame everyone but themselves for the current situation. However, the OHR notes that the parties, who were elected to serve the needs of the citizens of Mostar, have only pursued political negotiations based on their own selfish desires for power, position and material gain. In failing to prioritize the needs of ordinary citizens ahead of their own ambitions, they have brought shame upon themselves and the City of Mostar.”
“Calls by certain parties for new local elections or changes to the Mostar Statute are neither realistic nor helpful. The OHR expects the Mostar City Council session to resume as soon as possible, and to repeat the mayoral election procedure as many times and as often as necessary until the mayor is elected. Further delay to elect the mayor is unacceptable,” OHR said and suggested that the city council should undertake secret balloting for the position of the mayor, as allowed by the city statute.
