Breaking News!

[Djamila]

Please feel free to turn to this thread whenever something is happening that you'd like to ensure our fellow forumers are able to stay on top of, or when you would like the latest information about something!

My reason for starting this thread is because of the elections that were held today in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The polls have closed and results are starting to pour in.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is illegal for any electoral district to release its results until the full results can be released hours after the election is over. Individual districts can release only information related to voter turn-out, luckily this is itself a powerful indicator of the results of any election in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Voter turn-out so far is at 43.9%, and this includes mainly rural districts. 16 of Bosnia's largest cities have yet to report their voter turn-out, which will push this number much higher.

Voter turn-out is important because nationalist Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox Christians always vote. Always. Moderates, minorities, youth, and so on usually vote in much lower numbers. The statistics compiled from previous elections in Bosnia since the war, both federal, county, and municipal, have shown that moderate political parties and moderate candidates do four times better when voter turn-out is at 55% as compared to 35%.

So this high voter turn-out is an amazingly good sign!

Also, it is a HUGE sign because already more people have voted than in previous elections. Between this election and our last, Bosnia introduced new identification cards (like driver's licenses, only for citizenship, not driving) and part of this process was registering new voters. The total number of people automatically registered to vote was 400,000 more than in the last election. So already voter turn-out in this election has exceeded that.

So, with all of this, I'm willing to predict SDA (Muslim) will win the most seats, followed by a fairly equal ZaBiH (Muslim majority, mixed) and SDP (Slight Muslim majority, very mixed). Next will be SDS and HDZ, Orthodox and Roman Catholic-only parties respectively. SRS, the Serbian Radical Party whose leaders are mainly indicted war criminals, has dropped in popularity among Bosnian Serbs - this in itself will have a huge and benefitial impact on Bosnian politics.

And that's it so far! More as it comes!

 

[Djamila]

Okay, the Presidency has been announced preliminary.

Haris Siljadzic will be the Muslim President, Ivo Miro Jovic will be the Roman Catholic President, and Nebojsa Radmanovic will be the Orthodox Christian President. (We have three in Bosnia).

Siljadzic and Jovic both strongly support strengthening Bosnia's federal government and institutions. Radmanovic strongly supports dividing the country up along ethnic lines and allowing Serb-dominated areas to evict non-Serbs and join with Serbia.

We've managed to prevent that even with just the Muslim President pushing for reunification. Now we have a Roman Catholic President on side as well.

Furthermore, Siljadzic has defeated Sulejman Tihic, Bosnia's previous Muslim President. He was interned at a concentration camp during the war, 1993 I believe, beaten, all of that. So Tihic was VERY nationalist. Siljadzic, though, is more moderate, and represents SDP - which has enormous numbers of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian supporters (almost 50%) - so what he says will carry more power.

So two pushing for unity, the same sad old song from the other one - we'll do even better this time around!

 

[Djamila]

Uh Oh...

Ivo Miro Jovic did not win re-election. Once the city of Tuzla released its results, Zeljko Komsic of the SDP won the Roman Catholic seat in the Presidency. Zeljko Komsic is, from a moderate perspective, the perfect choice but the problem is that only slightly fewer Roman Catholics voted for Jovic.

Their nationalists are already saying it was Muslims voting for Komsic that gave him the victory, and they want a separate state within Bosnia for Roman Catholics.

This could be the last chance. If Silajdzic, Komsic, and Radmanovic can't decide on a new internal structure for Bosnia and Herzegovina, there could very easily be another war. If there was a new election tomorrow, all three nationalist parties would win.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Politics seem very complicated when you have religious parties.
That is the problem in northern Ireland.
Probably, when religion take on a tribal status, having separate states is easier.
But it make s the separate states too small to go it alone.
Some realignment in central europe seems inevitable.
With perhaps the EU supplying the size and stability.

 

[Booko]

Politics seem very complicated when you have religious parties.
That is the problem in northern Ireland.
Probably, when religion take on a tribal status, having separate states is easier.
But it make s the separate states too small to go it alone.
Some realignment in central europe seems inevitable.
With perhaps the EU supplying the size and stability.

When it can be seen by the example in other countries that religious parties only encourage government that promotes certain religions, the idea will die.

As a religious minority, I can't imagine living in a country that gave political power to a few religions, thereby telling the rest of us we are unimportant and should go take a hike.

But it may be a necessary stepping stone, given the history of some areas, to get to a place of greater justice and equality. If so, then it's not entirely a bad thing.

 

[Random]

Our esteemed Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), is going to give his speech to the Dail (Parliament) on Wed 04 Oct regarding charges of CORRUPTION against him for taking 8000GBP sterling from a few of his friends in the early 90's as a donation to help him through a "tough time" when he was breaking up with his wife. He subsequently promoted his rich business friends to State boards and had a string of girlfriends thereafter. But we still like him: he's our Bertie, and he's run the country so well that we forgive him...sort of. Still, he might have to resign.
IF he does, I'll post it on Djamila's wonderful new "Breaking News!" thread.

 

[Booko]

Our esteemed Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), is going to give his speech to the Dail (Parliament) on Wed 04 Oct regarding charges of CORRUPTION against him for taking 8000GBP sterling from a few of his friends in the early 90's as a donation to help him through a "tough time" when he was breaking up with his wife. He subsequently promoted his rich business friends to State boards and had a string of girlfriends thereafter. But we still like him: he's our Bertie, and he's run the country so well that we forgive him...sort of. Still, he might have to resign.
IF he does, I'll post it on Djamila's wonderful new "Breaking News!" thread.

By all means keep us abreast of politics in Eire! My daughter and husband make so much noise about moving there (permanently). I'd like to know what I'm in for!

I'm not worried about changable weather. I had plenty of that where I grew up.

 

[Random]

Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach of Eire, faced questions on his alleged unethical taking of money from Big Business during his political career today in the dail.

He floundered bad and didn't sound convincing. I've got a bet on with my Mom that he'll resign before Christmas. A general election could be on the way very soon!

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

By all means keep us abreast of politics in Eire! My daughter and husband make so much noise about moving there (permanently). I'd like to know what I'm in for!

One thing you will be surprised about is the price of houses.
15 years ago they were cheap
Now that all the expats are returning fom the USA to work in what is a very hot economy, housing and many other things are expensive even compared to England. and doubly so compared to the USA.