prijava
MOSTAR, December 18 (FENA) - The coalition "Under the Magnifying Glass" announced that the observers of that organization will do everything to make Sunday's elections for the City Council of Mostar one of the fairest and freest elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Presenting the results of the analysis of political campaigning, the director of the Coalition "Under the Magnifying Glass" Dario Jovanović said that the observers of that organization in the period from October 5 to December 14, 2020, recorded 18 election irregularities.
"Irregularities relate to the premature campaigning in nine cases, misuse of public resources in five cases and four cases of inappropriate speech in public space that can encourage religious, national or intolerance on other grounds, most often on the basis of belonging to a political option," said Jovanović.
As part of the election campaign irregularities, a case of gifting of children on two occasions by the SNSD was recorded, which may represent the misuse of children and minors for political purposes.
It was also noted that ministers in the Government of the Republic of Croatia on several occasions directly or indirectly gave support to one political entity, i.e., the HDZ BiH and openly called on citizens to vote for the mentioned political entity, while the Prime Minister of the Federation of BiH as a public and not a party official, contrary to what was stated on the website of the City Board of the SDA Mostar, met exclusively with the candidates of the Coalition for Mostar and their candidate for mayor.
A complaint also came from a citizen of Mostar who found promotional material in her mailbox that looked identical to the ballots that would be used on the election day, with a message on how and for whom to vote. These materials were disbursed by the Coalition for Mostar.
"The coalition "Under the Magnifying Glass" emphasizes that there is no legal way for any political entity to get a ballot before the election day. It is especially alarming if printed copies of ballots circulate in public even before the election day, because they can be misused on the election day itself," warned Jovanović.
The "Under the Magnifying Glass" coalition made an internal analysis of "critical polling stations" in the City of Mostar by looking into the previous general elections in 2018.
"This analysis indicates certain anomalies in the election process, such as e.g. turnout higher than 80 percent at one polling station, candidates with 100 percent preferential votes at a certain polling station and irregularities recorded in the reports of non-partisan observers of the “Under the Magnifying Glass” coalition from the previous elections.
The fact that as many as 41 polling stations in Mostar, i.e., 27 percent of the total number of regular polling stations, were assessed as "critical", is obviously is worrying for the stated reason," Jovanović pointed out.
He stressed that the coalition "Under the Magnifying Glass" will have observers at all polling stations in Mostar, and special attention will be paid to the mentioned "critical polling stations".
(FENA) S. R.
