ANALYSIS - Post-election challenges in Bosnia

*The writer is a lecturer at the International University of Sarajevo and the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Sarajevo.

ISTANBUL

Bosnian elections held on October 2 are one of the most important after the independence of the state. The results demonstrate that huge political tensions in the country will not be solved. Moreover, it is clear that Bosnia and Herzegovina entered a turbulent period which will describe its future.

Although the electoral process had major lapses, mostly at the level of voting for the president of entity Republika Srpska, including opposition Serb parties protesting against the results, significant changes did not occur and Milorad Dodik became president (He was the president of Republika Srpska from 2010 to 2018). On November 2, when results were officially announced political parties were clearly aware of their position within the political body and their possibilities during negotiations for the establishment of governments at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina which are cantonal level in Federation of BiH, entity level and finally state level.

The most sensible situation is within the Bosniak political spectrum. The dominant party remained SDA (Party of Democratic Action) with high percentages of support at the state and entity levels, while for the cantonal assemblies rates increased in Tuzla, Zenica, and Travnik regions. Canton Sarajevo, in that sense, represents a sore spot, the true Achilles’ heel for SDA especially because a crucial political battle among Bosniaks is happening right here.

On the contrary, the Alliance of Three (Social Democrat Party, Our Party, and People and Justice) since 2018 managed to be in power in Sarajevo trying and advocating to create a similar concept at higher levels. Taking only percentages and numbers into account it is obvious that SDA should be the main partner for Serb and Croat parties. But political development in Sarajevo encouraged smaller parties. Most of them started to count on their "piece of power" on the basis of an ambiguous election threshold of 3%. It is enough to become a parliamentary party in Bosnia for gaining enormous power in the process of establishment of government. That is why the Three is eagerly trying to gather small parties under a new umbrella called the Eight, and expel SDA from power.

This process, as with any other, has its own difficulties. Simply it is not easy to firmly hold the actors together who are quite different ideologically, historically, in size, or in personnel capacity. The Eight is counting on the united voice provided by the radical left to radical right political wings -what looks like a mission impossible from the beginning. What real advantage for the Eight is the support and extraordinary commitment of international actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in particular, the US Embassy and its Ambassador Murphy who is more like a cowboy in the saloon and out of diplomatic practice.

Engagement of international actors in election processRepublika Srpska

Taking all processes into account one can ask what reason lays behind that sneaky action by representatives of the international community. One narration is circulating in the Bosnian public saying that Westerners would like to start the process of "deradicalization of Bosnian politics" through the elimination of strong nationalist political subjects. In that sense compared to HDZ (Croatian Democratic Community led by Dragan Covic) or SNSD (Union of Independent Social Democrats led by Milorad Dodik), SDA is more moderate. Although SDA has is a strong opposition party, Dodik has a strong rule for a long period of time and Covic has no serious challenges among Croatian voters. As such the dominant Bosniak political subject is about to be out of Westerners' favor.

That approach has major shortcomings. First of all, there is no respect for the will of the voters supporting a particular political subject. Having in mind that SDA is mostly representative of the Bosniak conservative population the message sent to them by Westerners has a negative undertone. SDA was and still is a leader in the democratization of the country. This is the main reason why within the Bosniak spectrum there exists so many political parties and different ideological concepts. Thus the message is becoming more sinister.

Secondly, High Representative Christian Schmidt intervened in the Electoral Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina giving an advantageous position to Croats (one could say that is more precise to say that he favored HDZ) -- which also made changes in the Constitution of the entity Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By that action, he undoubtedly gave huge power to HDZ and consequently made Bosniaks, as the most numerous people (60% at the state level, and about 78% at the entity level), less valuable, which is also a message that a large part of the public still cannot deal with. In addition to the above-mentioned deprivation of the will of the voters, this fact completely worries Bosniaks, who are becoming an object of European politics, rather than their interlocutor. Apparently, Westerners would like to have different types of Bosniaks or no Bosniaks at all.

Three lessons

The narrative about the deradicalization of Bosnian politics ends with a promise. Although the SDA developed democratic processes and institutions in the realms where it had power, its elimination will lead to positive processes within the other two nations. Eventually, there will be a domino effect in which new and pro-democratic movements occur within Serbs and Croats. Sounds nice? Of course. Is it real? Out of the logic.

There are two lessons from history that all of us should take seriously. When a strong Bosniak political subject loses its position and is replaced by a very strange coalition of parties and individuals, the nationalist neighboring policies will have an easier way to attack Bosnian statehood in trying to realize their goals. For Bosniaks, it means trouble and unfortunate deployments. Actually, there is a third lesson too. Westerners will turn a blind eye and wait for the Serbs and Croats to finish the job. Pretending that they do not know what is going on. That kind of development is a clear call for seriousness.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.