When it became clear Muslims were the majority in BiH, Mikulić postponed the publication of the 1971 census results

The population census in Bosnia and Herzegovina was completed exactly two years ago, but the official results have still not been published, despite numerous warnings from EUROSTAT that it must be more efficient and that numerous shortcomings that appeared during discussions between the entity statistical offices should be eliminated, writes the Patria news agency.

The planned postponement of census results in these areas, driven by political reasons, is not surprising.

In 1971, as in 2013, when it became clear that Muslims were the majority in BiH, panic erupted in the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CKSK BiH).

Thus, in 1971, after the census conducted in the then SFR Yugoslavia, it was recorded in the books of historians that Branko Mikulić, then secretary of the CKSK BiH, discussed the census results with Rodoljub Čolaković, another high-ranking communist official.

"The 'problem' of the increase in the Muslim population was pressing officials in Yugoslavia and BiH at the time. Rodoljub Čolaković, according to his notes, learned from Branko Mikulić in March 1972 that Bosnian Muslims had outnumbered Serbs in the last census, with 39 percent in BiH, and Serbs 37 percent.

"We all lived in the belief that Serbs had a relative majority. Mikulić then said that we should not publish the census results yet, because the Muslim reactionaries will jump up to demand their mother republic, which all nations except Muslims have. That data does not change the character of our Republic - Čolaković replied - because it remains the Republic of Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, as conceived in Jajce, at the Second Session of AVNOJ."