In the absence of a legal basis, local elections could not take place in Mostar in 2012 and 2016. The mandate of the City council also expired in 2012. Bešlić thus remained as acting mayor for eight additional years, during which he affirmed that he considered resigning multiple times, also due to his deteriorating health. During this time, he shared the administrative duties with Izet Šahović, head of the Mostar City's Finance Department, a bureaucrat and member of the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA). For two full mandates, Bešlić and Šahović have decided together how to disbourse Mostar's yearly 30 million euro budget, without any legislative oversight or public transparency. The situation has been denounced by multiple NGOs, which have pointed at the SDA-HDZ power-sharing as the source of the mal-administration of Mostar and the recurrent problems with trash collection, water treatment, and continued ethnic duplication of the city services.