Post by kapetan on Sept 11, 2008 9:20:52 GMT -5
11 September 2008 Novi Pazar _ The local assembly in Serbia’s Muslim-dominated town of Novi Pazar have agreed that it should be divided up into new municipalities, but local Muslims fear this will occur along ethnic lines.
This was a key demand of the Serbian parties which came to power following the May 11 local election.
Some residents in Novi Pazar, which has a population of 100,000 citizens – 80 percent of whom are Bosniaks (Muslims) and 20 percent Serbs – fear the town might be carved up along ethnic lines.
Novi Pazar’s United Serbian Ticket coalition, which is made up nationalist parties including the Serbian Radical Party, the Democratic Party of Serbia, New Serbia and Socialist Party of Serbia, had promised their voters during the election campaign that they would insist on the division of the town into several municipalities.
Since none of the Bosniak parties won enough votes to form a local governing majority by themselves, the United Serbian Ticket emerged as king-maker and was wooed by the Bosniak coalition, For European Novi Pazar Boris Tadic-Rasim Ljajic.
The city’s new adopted statute, which has been seen by Balkan Insight, specifies that the newly-formed city municipalities will perform jobs whose management will be under the city's jurisdiction.
None of the officials from ruling parties wanted to comment on the articles in the Statute.
Vujica Tiosavljevic, a representative of the Serbian Ticket and president of the New Serbia party in Novi Pazar, earlier told Balkan Insight that in the new municipalities, Serbs will make up 80 percent of the population in one of them, 60 percent in another, 40 percent in a third, and 30 percent in the last.
Milan Veselinovic, leader of the local Radicals, thinks that Novi Pazar should be divided into three or four municipalities.
"Each municipality should have a school, police station, health centre, and a municipal building, all of which cannot be provided without assistance from the state," argued Veselinovic.
This was a key demand of the Serbian parties which came to power following the May 11 local election.
Some residents in Novi Pazar, which has a population of 100,000 citizens – 80 percent of whom are Bosniaks (Muslims) and 20 percent Serbs – fear the town might be carved up along ethnic lines.
Novi Pazar’s United Serbian Ticket coalition, which is made up nationalist parties including the Serbian Radical Party, the Democratic Party of Serbia, New Serbia and Socialist Party of Serbia, had promised their voters during the election campaign that they would insist on the division of the town into several municipalities.
Since none of the Bosniak parties won enough votes to form a local governing majority by themselves, the United Serbian Ticket emerged as king-maker and was wooed by the Bosniak coalition, For European Novi Pazar Boris Tadic-Rasim Ljajic.
The city’s new adopted statute, which has been seen by Balkan Insight, specifies that the newly-formed city municipalities will perform jobs whose management will be under the city's jurisdiction.
None of the officials from ruling parties wanted to comment on the articles in the Statute.
Vujica Tiosavljevic, a representative of the Serbian Ticket and president of the New Serbia party in Novi Pazar, earlier told Balkan Insight that in the new municipalities, Serbs will make up 80 percent of the population in one of them, 60 percent in another, 40 percent in a third, and 30 percent in the last.
Milan Veselinovic, leader of the local Radicals, thinks that Novi Pazar should be divided into three or four municipalities.
"Each municipality should have a school, police station, health centre, and a municipal building, all of which cannot be provided without assistance from the state," argued Veselinovic.