The pre-election silence started at 7 a.m. this morning, and will last unit Saturday 13, at 7 a.m. According to OSCE and the PEC, there are 1,546.679 people registered in the RS, and 1,343.319 in the Federation. HR Westendorp invited all the people in the RS and Federation to vote. Those who are telling you not to vote are denying your fundamental rights to elect your own leaders, Westendorp said.
President of the RS PEC, Cancar said that there were only 110,000 voters abroad last year, whereas this year about 300,000 of them registered. He also said that only 75,000 absentee voters registered for the local elections, in FRY, comparing it to 200,000 voters who voted last year. The new OSCE rule is that ballots will be cast at polling stations and then sent to the local EC (elections commissions), whereas the final results will be given by the RS PE Commission, that will be monitored by the police and international monitors.
3:00
Serb Sarajevo – local authorities and police are making the final preparations for the elections. OSCE distributed ballots for this municipality only today which shows the irresponsibility of the IC. The ballots were distributed by SFOR so late, as if they have 15 days instead of 40 hours until the elections.
2:00
Sarajevo – the CoM session – The CoM agreed on the basic principles on organisation of the Civil airports in Banja Luka, Mostar and Tuzla. The CoM Co-chair, Bosic said that respected the Ministries will prepare a Memorandum on the Agreement to be signed at the next CoM session, to be held tomorrow. The CoM also agreed on organisation of Annex 3 on the general agreement between the CoM and USAID on providing $ 115 million. Bosic also said that they talked about the establishment of four borderlines (Dubica, Gradiska, Brod and Samac), and discussed sending a delegation to the annual WB conference. Bosic underlined that they could not reach an agreement on telecommunication because of not being able to co-ordinate their position. HR Senior Deputy, Wagner also attended the session. The CoM talked with an OHR official concerning financial support to the work of the CoM.
3:00
Flash news:
SRT reported that foreign media said that the IC has made a number of wrong moves by insisting on the policy which based on reality, and could lead the IC into an abyss.
France press reported that the Russian Ambassador Curkin criticised NATO because they don’t regularly consult with Russia regarding the crisis in the RS. He underlined the recent events of conflict between SFOR and SRT as an example and said that Russia will never support the splitting or dissolution of the RS.
Curier reported on a statement of the ex-HR Bildt who said that the IC policy collapsed, adding that even after the latest EU meeting, its members were not ready to handle the crisis in the Balkans.
Daily Telegraph reported that the DPA should change because none of the three sides is eager to create a multi-ethnic BiH. Telegraph quotes the US Special Envoy, Holbrooke saying that he fears that the DPA will not pass the most difficult exam since none of the sides want to implement it.
German Morgen reported that the US openly supports Plavsic which indicates that the Americans might have had caused this crisis.
France press said that tomorrow, US will send three planes for disturbance of SRT programme during the elections.
3:00
Sokolac PTT received the cell-phone switch board RAS 1000 which will provide lines to 750 users in the Sokolac, Pale, and Stari Grad municipalities.
Summary SRT TV News Banja Luka
The pre-electoral silence started at 7 o’clock this morning and will last until Sunday at 19:00 hours when the polling stations close.Any kind of public pre-electoral campaign for all the political parties, coalitions, and independent candidates has been forbidden since this morning.
The OSCE supervisors visited the polling stations today in order to make sure the LECs were ready for performing this very important task – holding elections in RS and BiH Federation for the local levels of authority.
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1,154,679 voters have been registered in RS, and 1,343,319 voters in BiH Federation for the municipal elections on September 13 and 14th.
The President of the Republic Electoral Commission, Petko Cancar stated today that this year it would be possible to count the votes and define the results at the polling stations. The results from the polling stations would be sent to LECs, which would sum up the results and forward them to the Republic Electoral Commission. The final results would be defined in presence of the political parties representatives and international monitors.
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All the preparations for the municipal elections which will be held in two days have been done well and in time, the Banja Luka LEC announces.
Around 132,000 persons with the right to vote have the opportunity to vote for political parties and candidates at one of 91 polling stations. The members of polling stations committees, 617 of them, as we have been informed by Vukasin Boskovic, President of LEC Banja Luka, have been trained in order to have the best possible local elections. This morning, a part of the material for the elections, so called non-sensitive material – boxes, posters, pencils, etc., arrived at the polling stations, and the final voters’ lists for all the persons registered in BL, too. The sensitive material, i.e. ballot papers, according to the OSCE rules, will arrive on Saturday morning, before the official opening of the polling stations. According to the same regulations, the counting of the votes will be done at the polling stations, in presence of the OSCE supervisors and representatives of all parties.
2 min
The OSCE has not defined the final number of registered voters in Brcko.
The OSCE mission spokesman in BiH, David Foley stated today that the Head of the mission, Robert Frowick, in agreement with the Electoral Sub-commission for Appeals, had approved of the new registration for 259 Serbs in Brcko, the Beta agency reports.
At the press conference in Sarajevo, Foley said that 2,285 persons, who had been registered in the second round of the registration in that town, had been omitted from the voters’ list by mistake. The names of the voters who had been omitted by mistake would be added to the final voters’ lists, added the spokesman for the OSCE mission.
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After long negotiations between the OSCE and RS representatives, the disagreements about certain rules and regulations concerning the September elections have been resolved, stated the OSCE public relations official Johan Verheyden.
Verheyden pointed out that he was satisfied with the decisions of, as he said, dissolved RS Assembly to conduct the elections in spite of the previous decision of the Parliament and threats to boycott the elections. He also said that not a single SDS candidate, removed from the list, would be returned to it. The sorting and counting of ballot papers would be done in Rajlovac, where the teams from Pale would also come, and the full access would be provided for the Serb monitors.
1 min
The OSCE official for public relations, Johan Verheyden stated in Banja Luka today that it had been agreed that during the elections there would not be any arrests of the people, provided they were not officially indicteed by the Hague Tribunal for war crimes.
30 sec
The Spokesman of SFOR, Sector for south-west, Mike Wright stated at today’s press conference in Banja Luka that the military barracks Rakovacke bare in BL had been returned under the authority of VRS, and that there was a smaller group of Serb soldiers there now.
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The IPTF spokesman, Alun Roberts stated at today’s press conference in BL that 7 rifles, 10 cartridge belts, 6 hand grenades, and 3 packages of tear-gas had been found in 4 out of 13 vehicles taken from the parking lot at the “Bosna” Hotel.
Roberts expressed satisfaction because the local police had not opened the vehicles without the presence of IPTF officials.
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Today, the High Representative of the international community for BiH, Carlos Westendorp called on all the voters in RS and BiH Federation to vote in the September elections.
In the message of the international organizations from today’s press conference in Sarajevo, it was said that those elections would give a chance for all the nations in BiH to express their will and take the future in their hands.
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The Commissioner for refugees of Serbia, Bratislava Morina stated today that the participation of the refugees in FRY at the local elections in BiH would not affect getting the Yugoslav citizenship.
She stated that there were 71 polling stations in Serbia, and 9 in Montenegro. Around 75,000 refugees had the right to vote, out of whom 68,000 would vote at the polling stations in FRY, and 3,500 in BiH.
1 min 5 sec
Today, a journalist from Vienna pointed out that along with proposals, threats of the international community, and negotiations, the turnover in the policy of Pale authorities towards the elections had resulted from yesterday’s meeting of Momcilo Krajisnik with Slobodan Milosevic and Carlos Westendorp in Belgrade.
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The Banja Luka airport will be opened soon. The final technical check done today.
The opening of the airports in BL, Tuzla, and Mostar for civilian traffic was the topic of the conversation at the Council of Ministers of BiH in Sarajevo today. It was expected that the memorandum on opening those airports would be signed at the session of the Council of Ministers in Sarajevo the following day. The final technical check was performed by the international organization for civilian air-traffic. Although we still have not the final information, it is certain that the first airplane in the international air-traffic will land at the Banja Luka airport in Mahovljani in about ten days.
1 min
The first session of the General Council of the Confederation of Trade Unions of RS was held in Banja Luka yesterday. Because of the difficult economic, social, and political crisis, the Trade Unions leadership issued a public announcement for all the relevant factors in the country and abroad.
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The High Representative for BiH, Carlos Westendorp and his Deputy, Jacques Klein will meet with Franjo Tudjman in Zagreb today. The goal of their visit is to ask Tudjman to use all his influence and persuade HDZ in BiH to give up the boycott of the local elections.
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