Bosnia Muslims Fear 'Losing Srebrenica' in Elections

Bosnia's principal Bosniak [Muslim] party has urged the state government to amend the election law to ensure that Bosniaks driven from Srebrenica and now living elsewhere can vote in this autumn's local election.

The Party of Democratic Action, SDA, said it wanted to be sure that all Bosniaks from Srebrenica who no longer live there can register and vote for their candidate for mayor.

“We will not accept any mayor of Srebrenica who denies the [1995] genocide,” SDA party official Sadik Ahmetovic said in Sarajevo on February 24.

Ahmetovic was voicing fears that the town's current Serbian majority population could outvote the Bosniaks and insert their own mayor for the first time.

Before the massacre of around 8,000 Bosniaks in the town in July 1995 by the Bosnian Serb army under Ratko Mladic, Srebrenica was an overwhelmingly Bosnian town.

The pre-war municipality was home to some 37,000 people, 80 per cent of whom were Bosniak.

But the percentages today are currently almost the opposite. Of some 6,000-7,000 people who actually live in Srebrenica town, some 30 per cent are Bosniaks and the rest are Serbs, most estimates say.

But, although most local Bosniaks have either been killed or have left, the town remains deeply sensitive for most Muslims as a symbol of their wartime suffering.

Moreover, more than 5,000 victims of the 1995 massacre are buried at the Potocari genocide memorial.

The election law was amended in 2008 for the local elections to enable Bosniaks no longer living in Srebrenica to vote.

But that change was valid only for that year's local elections.

Camil Durakovic, the town's Bosniak deputy mayor, told Balkan Insight on Friday that if a Serb ran the municipality, he would probably be a "genocide denier", as most local Serbs had that opinion. “The genocide is still a very sensitive issue here,” Durakovic said.

Durakovic told Balkan Insight that registration for local elections in Srebrenica should be done according to the 1991 census, allowing former citizens to vote there.

“We have information that many Serbs registered as living in Srebrenica actually are not [living there] but only come during the elections to increase the number of Serb votes,” Durakovic claimed.

The mainly Bosniak opposition party, The Alliance for the Better Future of Bosnia, recently sent a proposed amendment to the election law to the state parliament, demanding MPs make an permament exception when it comes to voting in Srebrenica.

Abdurahman Malkic, who was twice mayor of Srebrenica, said in Sarajevo on February 23 that Bosniaks in the municipality were once again living in fear and uncertainty.

“We want the election law changed to put all Srebrenicians automatically on the list of voters,” Malkic said, “or allow them double registrations of residence.”

Sulejman Tihic, the leader of the SDA, last week said he thought Srebrenica should be given a special status in the country to solve such issues once and for all.

The issue would be discussed at the next meeting of the leaders of six main political parties in the country, he said.