September 6, 1996

Dole Urges Delay in Bosnian Elections


DAYTON, Ohio -- Speaking from the city where the Bosnia peace accords were reached 10 months ago, Bob Dole on Thursday proclaimed their results a failure so far and urged an indefinite delay in Bosnia's presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled next week.

The Republican presidential nominee delivered his views to an audience made up mostly of parochial school students, providing a solemn conclusion to what had been a breezy, 40-minute outdoor forum devoted to the subject of education.

It was the second time in a week that Dole urged a delay in the Bosnia elections. But his prepared comments, which he delivered at a well-attended forum in the city that gave the Dayton Accords their name, thus seemed designed to draw increased attention to his views. But his effort to make President Clinton's overall foreign policy a campaign issue was frustrated by the attention being paid to the United States' intervention in Iraq.

"These elections will be a fraud, but a fraud with the American stamp of approval," Dole said, standing in an outdoor courtyard at the center of the Dayton Christian High School.

He listed for his audience -- notably, high school students who hung out the windows of the three-story high school that boxed in the courtyard -- reports of voter registration fraud, intimidation of opposition party members and the participation of war criminals in the election process.

Dole suggested that in that context, it was unconscionable for the White House to argue that conditions existed for "fair and free negotiations," as stipulated in the Dayton Accords, which were reached here last November.

"I ask now, Where is American leadership?" Dole said. "Where are the American values? Where are American interests? These elections make a mockery of our principals and commitment to democracy.

"Many Americans, regardless of party, think it's a big mistake to pursue what would, in effect, be a sham election."

Dole, both as a candidate and as Senate majority leader, has differed with President Clinton's policies in the former Yugoslavia. Dole supported lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnians, which Clinton opposed as president. But Dole supported the president when Clinton decided to send in a force of 16,000 troops, part of a 53,000-member NATO force, to enforce the peace.

Dole has pointed to the continued troubles in the region as evidence that his original position on the embargo was correct.

Clinton's aides said on Thursday that the White House would not drop its insistence that the election go on as scheduled on Sept. 14. The White House is making "an extensive effort" to move forward with the election in Bosnia, said Michael McCurry, the White House press secretary.

McCurry said a cancellation "would be a step backward into the past instead of moving forward into a better future."

If Clinton would agree to postpone the election -- which appears all but impossible now -- he would effectively undercut his contention that Bosnia is one of the foreign policy successes of his first term. What is more, delaying the election would increase questions about the president's ability to meet his promise to remove American troops from the country by the deadline of Dec. 20.

While on vacation last week, Dole initially raised the issue of putting off the elections in a letter to Clinton. At the time, Clinton was being nominated for a second term in Chicago, and Dole's statement received little attention.

Dole's press secretary, Nelson Warfield, said that the situation in Bosnia was another example of what he termed the failure of Clinton's foreign policy. "There is a consistent pattern across the globe of weakness in Clinton foreign policy," Warfield said, "and we think that's appropriate to comment on as the general election approaches."

Even as he criticized Clinton's policy and laid out the case that Bosnia had not met the terms for fair elections, Dole and his advisers did not specify exactly what alternative they had in mind. His aides said he was pushing to postpone, rather than cancel the elections, until conditions were right for a vote. Dole also did not say whether he was prepared to allow American troops stationed in Bosnia to stay longer if necessary to insure fair elections.