OSCE postpones Bosnian municipal elections .
SARAJEVO 1996-08-27
The U.S. diplomat in charge of elections in Bosnia announced on Tuesday that voting for municipal assemblies would be postponed because of irregularities by the Serbs in registering voters .
Ambassador Robert Frowick , representing the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE ) , told reporters that municipal polls due on September 14 with other Bosnian elections would be put off .
" I have made a chairman 's decision that it is not feasible to hold municipal elections on September 14 , " said Frowick .
He said no exact date had been set but it was possible the local elections would take place in the spring of 1997 .
According to OSCE officials , Serb authorities have pressed their refugees to register to vote in towns now under Serb control , but which used to have Moslem majorities .
Human rights workers say authorities in Serbia and Bosnian Serb territory have conducted a well-organised campaign to coerce refugees into registering only on Serb territory and failed to inform them of their rights under the Dayton peace agreement .
Diplomats say the effect of the electoral engineering would be to establish political control over districts they conquered and ethnically cleansed in war .
The response of the Bosnian Serbs to the OSCE 's announcement was not immediately clear .
But Bosnian Serb leaders have hinted they would boycott the poll if the municipal elections were postponed , or go ahead with their own .
The Bosnian Serb cabinet , in a letter to the OSCE , said on Monday that any delay of local elections would be " a direct and flagrant violation fo the Dayton agreement " .
The Serbs , who administer half of Bosnia in a Serb republic , said they had met all conditions for holding the September elections .
Diplomats fear that the crisis could cast doubt over the entire election process , which already appears set to confirm Bosnia 's ethnic partition rather than its reintegration as the Dayton peace agreement had planned .