Confusion Reigns Over Mayoral Race in Srebrenica, Bosnia

Confusion continues over who will become the next mayor of Srebrenica after special police in Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, entered the premises of the local election commission on Wednesday, to oversee the recount.

Nermin Alivukovic, president of the municipal election commission, told BIRN that the Serbian mayoral candidate, Mladen Grujicic, had called in the special police after finding election materials in bags in the trash.

Alivukovic said Grujicic had stated that he found the bags in front of his house and asked police to check them, but added that the bags did not contain ballot papers but other materials from the election, such as pens.

Alivukovic also told BIRN that another set of bags of election material were now in the municipality election commission building, but could not be opened by his staff since the special police would not let them.

Everything now had to go to the Central Election Commission, he said, because of the pressure created by the trash bag situation.

"Those are votes that have not yet been counted from other places around [the municipality of] Srebrenica," he said. "Those are votes that were not in the preliminary results published by the Commission."

Grujicic confirmed on Wednesday that while the bags did not contain ballot papers, "materials of interest to the police have been taken by them."

If Grujicic is indeed elected mayor, it will be a controversial development. Although the town lies in the Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, it remains sacred to Bosniaks as the place where Bosnian Serbs massacred more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys in 1995.

Although most of the town's residents are now Serbs, Bosniaks who used to live there have maintained their...