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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Bosnia's Municipal Elections 2000: Winners and Losers
April 27, 2000
Abstract
The international community can draw a degree of comfort from the results of Bosnia's 8 April 2000 municipal elections. Overall, the voting was free of violence and more freeand fair than any previous election held in Bosnia. Nationalism may not be on the run yet-witness the strength of indicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic's Serbian Democratic Party (SDS)-but moderate leaders are making inroads and increasing numbers of voters seem to be paying attention to their messages.
In Bosniak areas support shifted from the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA) to Haris Silajdzic's Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) and Zlatko Lagumdzija's moderate Social Democratic Party (SDP). As a result, Silajdzic positioned himself as king-maker in numerous Bosniak majority municipalities, and as heir apparent to the ageing Alija Izetbegovic among the Bosniak electorate.
