At tomorrow’s session, the Centar Sarajevo Municipal Council should consider the objection of the Mayor of the Municipality, Srđan Mandić, to the Council’s recent decision to initiate his impeachment. It is an initiative led by the Municipal Board of NiP party, which was supported by 18 councilors. However, this municipality in the Sarajevo Canton is not the only one where similar turbulent activities are taking place, a year before the local elections.
After three years of sitting in the mayor’s chair, Srđan Mandić is no longer seen in that position. More precisely, the municipal branch of People and Justice, which enjoys the support of SBB and some independent councilors, does not see him there. United in their dissatisfaction with Mandić’s work, they initiated his impeachment, suspecting, among other things, non-transparent and inappropriate spending of budget funds. All this, they claim, can be seen in the disrespect of the citizens, because of whose dissatisfaction they initiated the impeachment. Although there is money, there are no projects in this municipality, they say. Therefore, a referendum will be held on September 17.
“We believe that the dismissal of the head of the Municipality of Centar and the election of a new, competent person to his position would bring the municipality of Centar and its citizens the fulfillment of at least part of the pre-election promises and projects”, stated, among other things, from the municipal organization Narod i pravda Centar.
“The municipality of Centar, especially the mayor, has always treated the budget like a householder. Some talk about a very small amount of the budget last year, I invite you to look at how many funds were withdrawn through various projects, at various higher levels, so we did not spend money from the Municipality, but we took that money from other items, so it seems to them that less was spent.” says Alen Girt, head of the Councilors’ Club of Our Party in the Center Sarajevo Municipal Council.
They add that holding a referendum is absurd and unnecessary, but not unexpected. They claim it will work to their advantage.
“We are ready for the referendum, from the first day. Moreover, this will strengthen the position of Srđan Mandić, and at that referendum we will see how much has been done and how much Srđan Mandić is a mayor accepted by the citizens”, says Girt.
At the same time, the municipal organization of NiP appreciates that their move will not damage relations within the Coalition of the Three:
“We believe that the impeachment decision is based on arguments and democratic and legal principles, and as such should not be the cause of any negative relations within the coalition, especially since the coalition leads processes at the state and Federation level, and the inaction of one official and the poor management of one municipality do not may endanger.”
While the impeachment of Srđan Mandić, who exercised his legal right and submitted a request to the Municipal Council to review the decision to initiate his impeachment, will be considered tomorrow, other municipalities in the canton, judging by some speculations in the media, are not spared from the same scenario. In question is the mayor of the municipality of Novo Sarajevo, Hasan Tanović.
“We witnessed that there is a group that collects signatures for the impeachment of Mayor Hasan Tanović. I cannot know about the names and number of people who gave their signatures because I have not seen that list. The most important thing at this moment is to say that impeachment is an ‘expensive thing’ a year before the elections and doing such things is risky, because we don’t know what such an activity will bring us”, says Armin Handžar, SDP councilor in the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo.
Councilwoman of Our Party in the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo, Mirela Džehverović, was among the first to call for the impeachment of the mayor of this municipality. Today, although the attitudes and reasons for the impeachment remain unchanged, he says, it is still too late for this step.
“I still think that he is not doing well and he is not doing his job as we all expected and the changes that we promised. At the moment when I published that status, it was a political moment. However, now, after two months, the deadlines that are needed to start impeaching the mayor are very long, and we are afraid that we will enter the election year, when you can no longer do it,” Džehverović points out.
From one speculation to another, we come to the latest one, in the case of the Municipality of Centar. As some media report, two councilors have changed their position on the impeachment of Mayor Mandić. If one more quits by tomorrow, the impeachment won’t even happen. And since each party has its own view of the situation, if the mayors of these municipalities are impeached, then it will best be seen how stable the ground is on which the Coalition of the Three cooperates, both in Sarajevo and at other levels of government.
