ABSTRACT
The political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina by the middle of 1990 showed the certainty of multiparty elections but the conditions, competitors and even the legal system for the elections were not determined yet. The Communist Party was still in power officially but, in reality, there was a power vacuum. As a sign of their commitment to democracy and change, but also a sign of their weakness, they gave up control over the state. Instead of releasing public pressure, the power vacuum forced them to accept all the changes in society and announce proper political competition and elections in the republic. As already described, new political parties had been set up, but the main issue still remained concerning whether to lift the ban on ethnic political parties. The power vacuum and the new freedoms were used by nationalists, who gave up waiting for the ban to be lifted and actually set up their parties in the late spring and early summer of 1990. Thus, it became just a matter of recognizing reality and transforming already de facto organized ethnic parties into their de jure existence.
