Bosnia Herzegovina Elections

The Clinton administration said Friday that it will send 5,000 U.S. Army troops to Kuwait and 18 F-16C fighters to Saudi Arabia to reinforce U.S. warnings to Iraq, as top officials sought to coax reluctant U.S. allies to support more vigorous military action.

The international organizers of this month's Bosnian elections said Tuesday that the three main nationalist parties would not be able to form majority governments, based on final preliminary results. In the Nov. 11 balloting, voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina's two ministates--the Bosnian Serb republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation--elected members of a federal parliament. Voters in the Muslim-Croat Federation also chose regional officials and a federation parliament.

Bosnia's second postwar national election started Saturday, with Western powers hoping voters will ignore the ethnic parties that are slowing implementation of the 1995 peace agreement. The first day of weekend balloting was mostly calm, but a few dozen of the more than 2,600 polling stations failed to open after a computer problem prevented officials from having voter lists on hand.

Defying foreign pressure, voters from all three of Bosnia's ethnic groups have given strong support in general elections to hard-line nationalists. The first official results from Saturday's vote left foreign observers here shaking their heads at the setback to efforts to build a stable, multiethnic democracy. The reversal came nearly five years after the peace accords reached in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 21, 1995.

The Bosnian Serb parliament elected a new government led by a pro-Western moderate today in a major defeat for hard-line nationalists who boycotted the vote. A parliamentary majority backed Milorad Dodik, 47, leader of the Independent Social Democrats, as prime minister to head a government of "national unity." The new prime minister was nominated by Western-backed Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, who has been waging a power struggle against hard-line opponents for months.

Final election results confirmed the victory of an ultranationalist as president of the Bosnian Serb republic but also showed moderates made gains. Nikola Poplasen's victory over Western-backed Biljana Plavsic is seen by some as a setback for Western efforts to bridge the ethnic divide in Bosnia, but international organizers of the elections insisted the results were a success as moderates advanced throughout the country.

Four years after Bosnia's war ended, weekend elections showed how deep the ethnic divide in this country remains, as Muslim voters shifted toward moderate leaders while Serbs and Croats stayed with old-style nationalists. Although official preliminary results in the vote for municipal councils were not expected until today, the contending parties' own estimates of their showings were being regarded Sunday as reliable. In the past, such assertions have generally proved accurate.

The international organizers of this month's Bosnian elections said Tuesday that the three main nationalist parties would not be able to form majority governments, based on final preliminary results. In the Nov. 11 balloting, voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina's two ministates--the Bosnian Serb republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation--elected members of a federal parliament. Voters in the Muslim-Croat Federation also chose regional officials and a federation parliament.

Bosnian Muslims and Croats continued talks aimed at reaching a compromise plan to jointly govern the southwestern city of Mostar. The European Union--which has administered Mostar since 1994--had threatened to withdraw by midnight Saturday unless the town's Muslim and Croatian leaders agreed to abide by recent elections and share power. In Washington, meanwhile, the White House dismissed as "complete fabrication" a report that the U.S.

Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, contradicting repeated assurances from the State Department about the feasibility of a free and fair vote in Bosnia, urged President Clinton on Thursday to postpone the Sept. 14 presidential and parliamentary elections there, calling them "a sham in the making." "If held under present conditions," Dole said in a letter to the president, "these elections will be neither free nor fair, but a fraud--with the American stamp of approval."

Bosnia's Muslim majority rallied behind a multiethnic party of moderates in elections Saturday, while hard-line nationalists remained strong among ethnic Serbs and Croats. The first official results from the vote are not expected until today, but early returns this morning showed strong gains for reformist Zlatko Lagumdzija's Social Democratic Party in the Muslim-Croat Federation, which makes up just over half of Bosnia.

Four years after Bosnia's war ended, weekend elections showed how deep the ethnic divide in this country remains, as Muslim voters shifted toward moderate leaders while Serbs and Croats stayed with old-style nationalists. Although official preliminary results in the vote for municipal councils were not expected until today, the contending parties' own estimates of their showings were being regarded Sunday as reliable. In the past, such assertions have generally proved accurate.

Final election results confirmed the victory of an ultranationalist as president of the Bosnian Serb republic but also showed moderates made gains. Nikola Poplasen's victory over Western-backed Biljana Plavsic is seen by some as a setback for Western efforts to bridge the ethnic divide in Bosnia, but international organizers of the elections insisted the results were a success as moderates advanced throughout the country.

Despite a Western strategy of aiding moderate candidates and removing extremists, Bosnian voters largely stayed true to ethnic divisions in elections earlier this month, results released Friday show. Western officials trying to transform Bosnia-Herzegovina into a multiethnic democracy took solace from the gains that some moderates posted.

A black-and-white portrait of Nikola Poplasen hangs beside the door to his office, a poster of himself in the uniform of the notorious Chetnik paramilitary. He is standing in the snow near a forest, one boot resting on a fence rail, with an AK-47 assault rifle slung over one shoulder and a knife nearly as long as his forearm strapped to his belt.

In a serious setback to U.S. efforts to build a lasting peace in Bosnia, moderate nationalist Serb leader Biljana Plavsic on Monday conceded defeat to a hard-liner in this month's elections. The United States and other Western powers openly promoted Plavsic as the best alternative to more strident Serbian nationalists allied with indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Glossing over growing international skepticism and their own history of failing to keep promises, the presidents of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia pledged new steps Wednesday to assure free, fair elections in Bosnia next month and agreed to abide by the results. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who presided over the daylong Balkan summit, said the meeting "moved us a little closer to our goal of a unified, democratic Bosnia at peace."

Like a campaigning politician, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher glad-handed his way through this city's shell-pocked downtown Thursday. He pushed a winsome toddler on a swing, met opposition politicians and read a television speech--all to urge Bosnians to vote in next month's national elections. Conceding that the Sept.

As villagers strolled by Sunday on their way to vote, Serbian police commander Srdjan Knezevic's squarish face smiled eerily at them from an obituary photograph hung in the window of the bar named for his White Wolf wartime battalion. In the Serb-ruled half of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the gangland-style shooting of Knezevic last month has overshadowed countrywide elections.

Bosnia's second postwar national election started Saturday, with Western powers hoping voters will ignore the ethnic parties that are slowing implementation of the 1995 peace agreement. The first day of weekend balloting was mostly calm, but a few dozen of the more than 2,600 polling stations failed to open after a computer problem prevented officials from having voter lists on hand.