Rubina Cengic reports on the pre-electoral situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the "AIM" news pool on August 22, 1998.

It was the information that appeared first in the media that Carlos Westendorp possesses a secret list with some 262, or a similar number of names of high officials of the ruling SDA party, or individuals close to them, who are using somebody else's apartment, and in that respect, prolonging the implementation of the Annex VII of the Dayton Agreement. Then came a letter of the president of the Main Board of the BiH Social democrats, Sejfudin Tokic, sent to the head of the BiH OSCE mission, with a request to verify who are these key politicians from all BiH parties who, by living in somebody else's apartment are prolonging the implementation of the Dayton Agreement.

According to some sources, Westendorp did not publish his list so that he would not "get into a conflict with the Bosniak part of the political top just ahead of the elections." At the same time and according to the rules of the Temporary Electoral Commission, the OSCE made available to the public, through the Internet, all property information, supposed to be supplied by all electoral candidates. But, the question remains whether all are registered onto these OSCE cards.

The fact remains that a large number of individuals who are close to the political top use two apartments or have exchanged their property for an apartment that has been abandoned during the war, or by acquiring tenants rights to an apartment to which somebody already had the same.

The implementation, or more precisely, non-implementation of the Sarajevo declaration has lead to the imposition of sanctions towards Sarajevo. The task which has become a problem is to bring back 20,000 non-Bosniaks. According to some, this should not be a problem, if those who are using two or more apartments are eliminated. But, if the practice of bringing in petty party officials from provincial centers, as well as the redistribution of the apartments which belong to the so called military pool, still based on the same principle, or giving apartments only to party officials whose parties are in power, and while the regime itself is breaching the laws which are painstakingly voted in, the Sarajevo declaration will not be implemented - ever.



Source: "AIM" news pool, August 22, 1998