2020 Mostar municipal elections

Municipal elections were held in Mostar on 20 December 2020 to elect members of the City Council and the mayor of Mostar. The elections were part of the Bosnian municipal elections, although the elections in the rest of the country the elections were held earlier, on 15 November.

Background

The first local elections after a twelve-year intermission were held in Mostar after the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina amended the election regulations relating to that city, and in the middle of the year a political agreement was reached with the mediation of international officials on the method of electing city councilors. Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Party of Democratic Action have unsuccessfully negotiated new election rules for more than nine years, that is, how many councilors will be elected from which constituency. They agreed on this only in the middle of 2020, after strong pressure from the international community and after the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights from October 2019 following the lawsuit of Irma Baralija from Mostar. The European Court ruled that the fact that there were no elections in Mostar for so long represented a violation of the human and civil rights of the inhabitants of that city.
Mostar is one of the cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina known for its ethnic division. Since the end of the war in Bosnia, the city has been divided into a western part with a Croat majority and an eastern part with a Bosniak majority. According to the 2013 census, Croats make up 48.4% of the city, Bosniaks 44.1% and Serbs 4.1%.

Election system

When electing councilors to the City Council of the City of Mostar, voters vote on two ballots. One is used to elect parties at the level of the entire city, and the other at the level of six city areas, in three of which Bosniaks make up the majority, and in three Croats. There are 35 councilors in the council, of which 13 are elected from the city constituency, and 22 are proportionally divided according to the number of voters in six city areas. Seats distributed by the Sainte-Laguë method for parties that have crossed the electoral threshold of 3%.
The mayor of Mostar is elected indirectly from the City Council. If in two rounds of voting none of the candidates receives two-thirds support from 35 councilors, a third round is organized in which a simple majority is sufficient. In case of a tie, the mayor will become a younger candidate.

City council elections

City areas

The six city areas were divided in such a way that the city is divided into two parts, i.e. three cover majority Bosniak settlements and three majority Croats. The settlement of Mostar is divided into three parts, which belong to the city areas of Old City, West and Southwest. On the other hand North, Southeast and South includes rural parts on both riversides of Neretva.

Mayoral election

The city council was constituted on 5 February 2021, and the first round of elections for mayor was held there, in which none of the candidates received the required majority. Before voting in the second round, the representatives of the Coalition for Mostar, which includes the SDA, SBB, DF, SBIH and BPS, left the session, resulting in a lack of quorum, which is why the voting was postponed to February 10. After the first round, High Representative Valentin Inzko sent a message to the councilors that the election in the first round was invalid because the voting was held in public, which is contrary to the city's statute, which provides for secret voting. For this reason, on February 10, the first round of elections was repeated, which enabled new candidacies. In the end, Mario Kordić with 14 votes and Zlatko Guzin with 12 went to the second round, the other candidates were eliminated. The second round of elections was planned for February 12, but was postponed to February 15 at the request of several councilors. The second round was held on 15 February, and even then no one got the required majority, 17 councilors voted for Kordić and 14 for Guzin. The third round was held immediately after that, and Kordić again won 17 votes, which was enough for him to be elected mayor, while Guzin won 16 votes.