Hardliners pale out

Moderate Serb politicians are set to increase their support in this weekend's Bosnian elections, according to Western administrators base...

Moderate Serb politicians are set to increase their support in this weekend8217;s Bosnian elections, according to Western administrators based in the country. However, progress towards reversing the ethnic cleansing of the four-year war is slowing down. Hopes are high that the hardline nationalists who dominated politics in the Bosnian Serb entity will lose more ground in the poll, the third in two years.

The hardliners, who are based in Pale, lost control of the Republika Srpska parliament last year, when Milorad Dodik, a moderate businessman, became prime minister with a narrow majority of two seats. Based in Banja Luka, he has since been strongly supported by Western governments which have poured funds into the region. Western officials are also closely watching the contest for the Serb seat in the three-man collective presidency of Bosnia, to see if a Dodik ally can unseat Momcilo Krajisnik, the last strongman from Pale who still wields power.

In spite of the shift among the Bosnian Serbs away fromhardliners, steps towards recreating a multi-ethnic Bosnia are taking a long time. The number of minority returns8217; 8212; Bosnians moving back to areas where they used to live which are controlled today by a different ethnic group 8212; has slowed down. Most refugees go to areas where their group is dominant.

This year was dubbed The Year of Return8217;, but only 11,000 minority returns occurred up to July, compared with a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees8217; target of 50,000 for 1998. This contrasts with 45,000 minority returns in the first two years after the ceasefire and the Dayton accords.The Croats of Bosnia have also split. Kresimir Zubak, the Croatian member of the collective presidency, is struggling to retain his position against Ante Jelavic, a hardliner supported by the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has disqualified some of Jelavic8217;s parliamentary candidates because of persistent one-sided reporting on Croatian state-runtelevision.

Among the Bosnian Muslims, a similar struggle with moderates is unlikely to threaten the nationalist president, Alija Izetbegovic, who is standing again.