Election sanctions ordered against Bosnian nationalists

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (Reuters) -- Western officials in Bosnia have punished Croat and Serb nationalist parties for breaking election rules.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which ran and monitored the polls, ordered nationalist Croat and Serb parties to give up seats won in the elections.

The action will boost the hopes of moderate parties, which are not split along ethnic lines.

Nationalists among the country's former warring sides have posted strong results in the vote count so far, striking a blow to Western hopes for an end to the ethnic divisions.

The OSCE removed 10 seats in regional assemblies from the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The party was found to have played a leading role in an illegal referendum on the rights of Croats in Bosnia on election day and to have used it for party political purposes.

The nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) lost half of its seats on the town council in Srebrenica, for alleged fraud and voter intimidation. The OSCE also ordered the party to dismiss the officials involved.

ALSO Bosnia's main parties

The sanctions against the SDS will give a strong boost to Muslim parties in the town -- the site of the biggest Serb massacre of Muslims during the Bosnian war where up to 7,000 were killed or went missing and thousands more fled.

OSCE spokesman Luke Zahner said: "Failure to comply will result in the party losing the other half of its mandates in the municipal assembly."

The OSCE has left the door open for further punishment of nationalist parties, which have been accused of stirring ethnic hatred and separatism during the campaign.

Last weekend's general elections were the third since Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina
OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina

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