Srebrenica Waits Uneasily for Mayoral Vote Result

Officials claimed that everything was calm but some locals were nervous as they continued to wait to find out whether a Serb or a Bosniak has won the mayoralty in the wartime flashpoint town.

Although there is no final result yet from Sunday’s mayoral elections in Srebrenica, the Serb candidate, Mladen Grujicic, was keen to play down fears of tensions.

“As you can see, in Srebrenica, it’s peaceful,” he told reporters in a quiet street outside the election commission building on Wednesday.

He has accused the media of “staging panic” in the town over the hard-fought election battle that could make him the town’s first Serb mayor since the war.

In cafés and shops, many ordinary people bristled about the journalists asking questions all around town. “We don’t want to talk to journalists – especially about the elections,” said one woman at the market.

“Everything is normal” was a phrase repeated to BIRN by several shopkeepers and taxi drivers who did not wish to speak further.

“Please write that I have not had any problems,” one business owner insisted.

But BIRN spoke to several other people who could not say the same.

Pressure points

Zahida Ramic runs a café near Srebrenica’s bus station.

“I thought it was just the wind, then I came in and saw the broken glass and a stone,” said the 46-year-old, pointing at two broken windows in her café.

She made the discovery on Wednesday morning, and the attack must have taken place on Tuesday night. The café lies 100 metres from a police station.

Ramic does not know who was responsible. She said the attack could have been a message to leave, since she is one of the town’s minority of Bosniaks, but she can’t be sure.

For now, to be on the safe side, she has closed the café – her only source of income – since she feared worse could be to come.

“There are a lot of police officers in town, but… they are only protecting the municipality, not the citizens. Anybody could kill us,” she said.

Bosniak officials have voiced concerns in over tensions in Srebrenica after Sunday’s municipal elections, which has resulted in deadlock between current mayor Camil Durakovic, a Bosniak, and Serb candidate Grujicic.

According to preliminary results, Grujicic was ahead of Durakovic by about 3,000 votes. However, the final result is unconfirmed due to disputes and delays in counting ballots from abroad.

If Grujicic is elected mayor, it would be controversial since the town is highly symbolic for Bosniaks as the place where Bosnian Serb forces massacred more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys in 1995.

The town now lies in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, and is mostly inhabited by Serbs. But Bosniaks who used to live there have maintained their connection to the town – including voting rights – which is why Srebrenica has continued to have Bosniak mayors.

Durakovic has pinned his hopes on the votes of about 3,200 people living outside Srebrenica, most of whom are Bosniaks who left because of the 1992-95 conflict.

Despite Grujicic’s talk of calm, BIRN confirmed that the dispute over the results has seen bitter moments.

Grujicic’s supporters began early celebrations on Sunday night, after preliminary results were released by the Central Election Commission.

“We supporters of Camil Durakovic were outside his office, and the other side – the supporters of Grujicic – were perhaps 20 metres away. They started singing and celebrating,” said a 26-year-old eyewitness who declined to be named.

“That would be fine,” he added, “except that the songs were Chetnik [Serb nationalist] songs.”

Police arrived to calm tensions as verbal abuse was exchanged and a small fight broke out.

“We all felt fear, not just on our side but also the Republika Srpska policemen. They were begging everybody, please don’t do this,” the eyewitness said.

But police defused the situation without using force, and the crowds dispersed.

Then on Wednesday, police special forces stepped in to stop recounts by the municipal election commission.

The count in the town had been troubled from the beginning. Initial results released on Sunday evening proved to be higher than those published on Monday morning.

Nermin Alivukovic, the president of the municipal election commission, told BIRN that it was Grujicic who had called in special police after claiming to have found rubbish bags full of election materials in front of his home.

The rubbish bags turned out not to contain stolen ballots, but other election materials such as pens.

However, Alivukovic said, the incident meant that his team was in limbo on Wednesday as the police stopped them counting votes and handed over the materials to the Central Election Commission.

Grujicic has distanced himself from the row, telling reporters he had only heard about the police special forces in the media because he had been out of town.

In an added twist the same day, two members of the municipal electoral commission briefed media against Alivukovic.

Nada Milosavljevic and Ljiljana Stevanovic, both Bosnian Serbs, said the president of the commission had announced preliminary results incorrectly earlier this week.

The word on the street

While the result is pending, those who live in Srebrenica disagree over what the outcome could mean and how the atmosphere in the town has been affected.

In Café Venera, Mitar Milanovic, 19, told BIRN: “Grujicic is our new mayor, and that’s wonderful news for us”, prompting a cheer from several people at the bar.

Milanovic said he hoped life in Srebrenica would get better for him if Grujicic secures victory. Maybe he would get a job, he said.

In another café, BIRN reporters were told by an angry man who did not give his name that “there will be blood on Srebrenica’s streets if Grujicic does not become mayor”.

But Nikola, a 29-year-old Serb, suggested reports of tension were overblown.

“Everything is normal. My colleagues are Bosniaks and Serbs. We work together and laugh together. We drink coffee and beers – everything,” he said, asking for his surname not to be published because of his job.

“Of course, I heard about what happened after the elections. Some Serbs were drunk, some Muslims were drunk. They said some words – but it was only words. The police came, and that’s it,” he added.

Zoran Veselinovic, 50, agreed.

“Everything is normal. We are all living together here, and I have friends who are Muslims and Serb,” he said.

Meanwhile Fadila Muharemovic, 45, said it did not matter who was mayor as long as they were well-educated, would work hard to bring jobs to the town so that young people could return, and do “everything they can for everybody”.

She said she found life in Srebrenica peaceful and predicted talk of the mayoral race would die down in a week’s time.

But the Durakovic supporter who told BIRN about Sunday’s fight said he believed that if Grujicic wins, a Serb mayor would further marginalise Bosniaks in Srebrenica, appointing only people “of the same mind as him” to key posts in the municipality.

Almir Salihovic, an activist who worked on a campaign encouraging Bosniaks from Srebrenica who live elsewhere to vote, suggested that if Grujicic wins, it could mean that people who were displaced by the war might no longer feel safe to return to live in the area again.

“For these people, changes in the rule of Srebrenica means the final end for their hope of return,” Salihovic told BIRN in a written statement.

“They will come to Srebrenica to rebuild their houses at some point maybe, but when it comes to political and civil participation, I think this is the bottom line for them.”