Ljubo Bešlić

Ljubo Bešlić (born 27 July 1958) is a Bosnian Croat politician who served as mayor of Mostar for seventeen years, from December 2004 until 15 February 2021.

He is a member of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH).

Biography[]

Bešlić graduated in 1982 from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Mostar. He then worked as a professor at the High School of Mechanical Engineering in Mostar, and then in the graphic company "Rade Bitanga" of Mostar, as the head of the maintenance service.^[1] He was actively involved in handball (1972–1990) at the Velež Handball Club.^{[citation needed]}

From 1992 to 1995, he served in the Croatian Defence Council during the Bosnian War.^[1] In 1996, he got involved in the NATO-led arms reduction programmes.^{[citation needed]} Bešlić took part in the establishment of the Ministry of Defence of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and then worked in the same ministry as head of the Technical Department in the Logistics Sector.^[1]

A member of Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH), Bešlić was appointed deputy mayor of Mostar by the City council in early 2003, and then mayor in mid-December 2004.^[1]

He has been an active member of the Council of Europe since 2004. From 2006 to mid-2009, he was the President of the Association of Municipalities and Cities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bešlić was appointed mayor of Mostar for a second term on 18 December 2009. He was the first mayor of a united Mostar after the war; during his first term the reconstructed Stari most (Old Bridge) entered the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Following an appeal by his HDZ BiH party, in November 2010 the Constitutional Court annulled the electoral legislation on Mostar which had been imposed in 2001 by the international High Representative.^[2] In the absence of a legal basis, since the Parliament had not acted to replace such legislation, local elections could not take place in Mostar in 2012 and 2016. In the absence of a city council, Bešlić remained as acting mayor for eight additional years, during which he affirmed that he considered resigning multiple times,^[3] also due to his deteriorating health.^[4] 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 had been deciding together how to disburse Mostar's yearly 30 million euro budget, without any legislative oversight or public transparency. The situation has been denounced by multiple non-governmental organizations, which have pointed at the SDA-HDZ power-sharing as the source of the maladministration of Mostar and the recurrent problems with trash collection, water treatment, and continued ethnic duplication of the city services.^[4]

In 2015, Bešlić was appointed chair of the Cantonal Committee of HDZ BiH.^[1]

In October 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Bosnia and Herzegovina in a case on the absence of electoral rights for the residents of Mostar.^[5] In July 2020, the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina amended the electoral law to allow for local elections in Mostar to be held in December 2020.^[6] Bešlić, due to his health issues (he is in need of a heart and kidney transplant) did not run as candidate councillor. He was succeeded as mayor by fellow HDZ BiH partner Mario Kordić on 15 February 2021, marking the end of Bešlić's seventeen year mayorship.^[7]

He is married and father of three children.

References[]