Exiled Bosnians protest confusing voting rules .
Duncan Shiels
NAGYATAD , Hungary 1996-08-28
Bosnian refugees in Hungary , the first to vote last weekend in their country 's first post-war election , found the rules confusing and some had no idea who they voted for , refugees and officials said on Wednesday .
" For the most part they really did n't understand what was going on , " the director of the Nagyatad camp Lajos Horvath told Reuters on Wednesday .
" It was confusing , they had no experience of voting , many of the refugees are only semi-literate and none of them knew anything about the candidates , " he said .
" They just voted along ethnic lines where they could . "
The Bosnian election is set for September 14 and voting began on Wednesday for most of the 600,000 Bosnians living abroad .
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe , which is running the election , allowed the ballot to be held on Sunday in four Hungarian refugee camps .
Some Moslem refugees among the 385 registered voters Hungary 's largest camp Nagyatad have written to the OSCE complaining that they were unable to vote in contests for the president or assembly of the Bosnian-Croat Federation , where most Moslems live .
This was because their pre-war homes are now in the Serb-controlled territory , so they were voting for the national assembly of the Republika Srbska , most of the candidates for which are Serbs .
For the foreign powers which back last year 's Dayton peace agreement , the main point of the election rules is that by voting as though they were still in their pre-war homes , Bosnians should override the effects of ethnic cleansing and reassert the concept of a single multi-ethnic state .
But Adem Hodzic , one of the refugees who signed the letter of complaint , told Reuters :
" We only realised after voting that we were being denied the rights of other Bosnian Moslems to choose our president .
This vote seals the division of my country . "
Under the election rules citizens vote for a three-man presidency and House of Representatives for all Bosnia-Hercegovina and for assemblies and cantonal seats in either the Moslem-Croat Federation or the Republika Srbska .
On Sunday voters in Hungary also cast ballots for municipal councils but these will be invalidated following the cancellation of local elections by the OSCE on Tuesday .
Husein Micijevic , who also signed the letter , alleged that elderly voters were directed who to vote for by Hungarian translators who stood in the polling booth to help them .
" Probably 100 refugees were shown where to put their cross , " he said .
Seventy eight-year-old Mandolina Zelic , a Bosnian Croat who has spent the last five years in Nagyatad , told Reuters she had cast her ballot because she 'd been told to by the camp authorities but had no idea who she voted for .
" At first the organisers would n't let anyone help me but when they saw I did n't understand a young translator ringed the names I had to mark , " she said . "
I do n't know who I voted for . "
Maria Szabo of the Hungarian office organising the elections on behalf of the OSCE told Reuters on Wednesday her office was studying the letter but said they had followed OSCE instructions very carefully .
" The envelopes , each with the five different voting slips , were sealed until voting and had written instructions on how to vote , " she said . "
But of course those who could not read had to be shown . "