HDZ in panic about losing Stolac after 26 years: Dead people voting, polling stations in private facilities

HDZ BiH in Stolac is resorting to various manipulations and subterfuges to ensure the victory of its candidate for mayor on October 2nd and win as many seats as possible in the Municipal Council, writes the Patria News Agency.

The mayoral position in Stolac has been sovereignly held by HDZ BiH for 26 years. For the first time, pro-Bosniak parties have united in one bloc – the coalition For a Better Stolac, whose joint candidate for mayor is Salmir Kaplan. This has precisely caused unrest in the HDZ headquarters, which is not choosing its means in the campaign to retain power. 

More than a month ago, Kaplan sent a letter to the Central Election Commission of BiH requesting that 305 deceased individuals be removed from the voter list.

- If such a significant number of deceased individuals remain on the final voter list, we believe that in the event of manipulations with the names of the deceased, we will have the right to question the legality and legitimacy of the local government elected in this way in the municipality of Stolac, warns Kaplan.

The current councilor in the Stolac Municipal Council, Demir Mahmutćehajić, also warned about the presence of deceased persons on the voter list, stating that there are more than 500 of them.

The fact that around 7,000 citizens voted in Stolac in the last elections, combined with this alarming fact that the list contains the names of 500 deceased persons, speaks volumes about the electoral engineering carried out by HDZ BiH, because 500 votes can once again bring victory to Dragan Čović's party, allowing the 26-year rule to continue unimpeded.

HDZ BiH in Stolac is not only falsifying voter lists. A few days ago, the president of the Municipal Election Commission, Ivan Perić, signed a notice stating that the "polling station from the Public Institution Children's Kindergarten is being moved to the private facility of Niko Raguž"!?

On what basis can the president of the MEC make such a decision, when, for example, every voter, by entering their data on the website of the Central Election Commission of BiH, immediately receives information about their polling station. Was this move made in agreement with the CEC, or is this a textbook example of violating the Election Law of BiH?

As election day, October 2nd, approaches, the HDZ campaign in Stolac is becoming more brutal, and pre-election engineering is gaining momentum. After the deceased on the lists and the arbitrary relocation of polling stations to private facilities, what will Čović's party do next in a panic about losing this Herzegovinian town after 26 years?