Ethnic tensions and a change in the electoral system mark the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dorde Mirković is an activist, the young man lives in Sarajevo, but last Saturday he returned to his hometown Bijeljina in the Republika Sprska, as that is where he has to vote. The young man does not believe that the results will change the situation in his country; he himself admits that "they are choosing between bad and worse". Bosnia and Herzegovina faced a presidential election last Sunday in a scenario where tensions have increased in recent months due to the claims of the different communities that coexist in the country, and under a unique system that was adapted to achieve peace at a key moment but that has been showing its shortcomings for some time now.
The Bosnian war was the bloodiest of the wars that led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. A conflict that left more than 100,000 dead and around two million displaced, it was brought to a close by the Dayton Accords, signed in December 1995, which set out the mechanisms for ending the hostilities, as well as the distribution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its communities. The former Yugoslav province was the most diverse in the region, with 44% of its population being Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), 32% Orthodox Bosnian Serbs and 17% Bosnian Catholics.
In Dayton, it was agreed that the country would be divided into two autonomous entities: the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb Republic of Srpska. In the same vein, the new constitutional text clarified that BiH's form of statehood would be collective. That is, the Presidency would be composed of three members: one Bosniac and one Croat elected by the Federation and one Serb elected by the Republika Srpska. This presidency would rotate every eight months among the three elected for a four-year term.
Thus, last Sunday, Federation voters voted for Bosniac and Croat members of the presidency, members for the House of Representatives at the state level, the House of Representatives in their own Federation entity and members of the assemblies in ten cantons. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into ten cantons, five majority Bosniak, three majority Croat and two mixed, with respective legal procedures for the protection of the constituent ethnic groups.
For their part, voters in Republika Srpska elected the Serbian representative of the tripartite presidency, the president and vice-presidents of their entity, the state-level House of Representatives, as well as the members of the entity's assembly.
And so it is that on Sunday, October 2, 7,257 candidates found their names on the ballot paper, in a total of 127 political entities, including 72 parties, 38 coalitions and 17 independent candidates. More than three million voters had been registered, according to the Central Election Commission (CEC) amid ethnic tensions and a dispute over electoral reform.
The situation in the country has been experiencing one of its most turbulent moments for months. Ethnic divisions between communities are deepening, something that the respective political leaders are using to their advantage. The International Institute for Middle Eastern and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) warns that "most party leaders use nationalism to attract voters, but they also produce and manage hatred to ensure their stay in power".
Aida Daguda, director of the Civil Society Advocacy Centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina, explains how "nationalist parties in Bosnia traditionally use tensions as the best pre-election tool. Fear is the main currency in Bosnian elections, where people vote for the same bad choices for 30 years".
Milorak Dodik, the Serb representative of the tripartite presidency, has never tried to hide his separatist intentions for Republika Srpska. The Bosnian Serb leader dismantled state institutions, particularly the judiciary, last year, threatening de facto Bosnian Serb secession. In December 2021, he pushed to remove Bosnian Serbs from Bosnia's joint army, judiciary and tax system. Dodik is now under US and British sanctions, including visa bans and asset freezes, for his efforts to undermine the Dayton agreement and the legitimacy and functionality of the state, as well as for alleged corruption. Despite this condemnation by international officials, his rhetoric remains unchanged and he continues to call for Bosnian Serbs to have their own state. Even then the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, warned in his first report that Dodik's actions "endanger the peace and stability of the country and the region".
While it is true that Dodik has not run for the renewal of his presidency, he has chosen to run for the entity's presidency in Republika Srpska, swapping places with the current president of the entity, Željka Cvijanović. Both are members of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
Nothing has changed for the Croatian community, with the first results once again giving victory to Zeljko Komsic, Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP), as the Croatian representative for the presidency. For its part, the Croat Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ), a Croat nationalist party, has been calling for electoral reform for some time now, considering that the current system largely favours Bosniaks over Croats in Bosnia. HDZ leader Dragan Covic claims that Zeljko Komsic is mainly elected by Bosniak citizens. This is why the Croat community is calling for separate lists in the Federation so that only the Croat community can decide their representative in the presidency.
Aida Daguda is clear, "the existing crisis in BiH has been constantly produced by the Dragan Čović (HDZ)-Milorad Dodik (SNSD) duo. The fact that they are not running in these elections will not change or calm the situation, as the main decisions are made in the ruling political parties and not in the institutions, and their party colleagues Borjana Krišto and Željka Cvijanović are candidates for presidential positions".
Shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m. on Sunday, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, announced changes to the country's electoral law.
The Dayton Accords also created the Office of the High Representative (OHR) with the High Representative at its head. The OHR has what is known as the "Bonn Powers", which gives it the power to rewrite laws and fire elected politicians and public officials in order to ensure the provisions of the Accords and thus peace and stability in the region.
In this way, Schmidt announced the implementation of measures aimed at improving the functionality of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and ensuring the timely implementation of election results. These measures are intended to satisfy the demands of the HZD, which political scientist and Balkan expert Jasmin Mujanovic described as "an absurd and profoundly illiberal move". The expert has denounced through his twitter account that these measures "significantly strengthen the hegemony of HDZ over the process of government formation in Bosnia and Herzegovina" which he considers "a permanent monopoly of power for Covic."
For its part, the US Embassy in Bosnia has not hesitated to support the measures stating that they seek to "strengthen the stability and functionality of Bosnia and Herzegovina", calling the High Representative's action "urgent and necessary".
The international context in which these elections have been held cannot be ignored; the fear that Russian influence has somehow altered the elections has been present from the beginning. Dodik's good relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who has openly supported the Bosnian Serb leader's actions from the beginning, has always been clear. Proof of this was Dodik's visit to the Russian president on the eve of these same general elections.
Daguda states that "Russia has interests in Bosnia, but I don't think it has any influence on the electoral process (at least not directly)". She explains "the symbolic importance of Russia for Bosnian Serbs, considering them brothers". In this sense, Mirkovic believes that the Bosnian Serb leader's visit to Putin "seven days before the elections was a move by Dodik to attract even more of his voters". "There is a lack of a BiH position towards [Russia's] aggression [against Ukraine] Dodik has blocked any statement on BiH's official position on the aggression; it all shows how much influence Russia has in the country and in the region in general," explains Aida Daguda.
Driving back to Sarajevo, Didok explains how people have to choose "between the bad guy and the less bad guy". The young man laments the population's "lack of knowledge about politics", something he himself believes is used by politicians.
Since the end of the war, the country has been economically stagnant. According to Transparency International's ranking of perceptions of corruption, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the most corrupt country in Europe, one of the reasons that has prevented it from achieving EU candidate status. Moreover, the unemployment rate among the under-25s is 37 per cent. The UN estimates that Bosnia and Herzegovina will lose between 40 and 50 per cent of its population by the end of the century.
In this regard, the director of the Civil Society Advocacy Centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina, confirms that there is "a very high level of corruption, as Bosnia's complex legal and regulatory frameworks create opportunities for it" but adds that "there is still hope that change is possible and that a new government, with new values and a will to fight corruption will bring recovery to our society. That hope fades after every election, but it still exists". However, he agrees with the young activist about the voting choices, "we are not happy with the quality of the candidates and the gender balance among them, and among the political parties", adds Daguda.
The election results for the representatives of the shared presidency have left virtually no surprises.
Milorak Dodik's right-hand man and SNSD member, Željka Cvijanović, won with more than 240,000 votes, while his main opponent, Mirko Šarović, received around 160,000.
The renewal of Željko Komsic (DF) as the Croatian representative of the tripartite presidency was also no surprise. Komšić was already elected as a member of the Presidency from 2006 to 2014, and was elected to the same position for a third term in the 2018 general elections.
Meanwhile, the Bosniac representation of the presidency was won by opposition candidate Denis Bećirović of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), with 55.78% of the vote over Bakir Izetbegovic, whose Bosniac nationalist party of Democratic Action (SDA) has been in power since the end of the war in 1996.
On the other hand, the opposition declared Jelena Trivic's victory over SNSD's Milorad Dodik in the race for the post of Republika Srpska president. However, SNSD in turn claims victory for its candidate.
"Good morning from Sarajevo, the capital city of a country in Europe where an unelected foreign official changes the laws [of the electoral system] while the votes are being counted, handing over the monopoly of power to a marginal insurrectionary bloc to invalidate the votes of the country's progressive majority," Mujonović tweeted early this morning, referring to the measures announced by the High Representative.
The elections have been over for days and the results are already clear. Little has changed in the voters' choice, and it will be the actions taken by the voters that will (or will not) change the course of the country.
Dayton has long since exposed its failings: a legal framework that continues to impose discriminatory ethnic and residency-based restrictions on the right to run for state office. Moreover, these agreements have done little to ease the deepening tensions between communities.
The victory of multi-ethnic parties with Komsic and Bećirović at the forefront could curb the spread of Serb and Croat nationalism in the country. IFIMES already considered the possible victory of the social democrat, Denis Bećirović, "a herald of a change of generations on the political scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the introduction of a new approach to politics", which they hoped would curb nationalism in the country. Something the young activist from Sarajevo sees as unlikely since "[Bećirović] has been in politics for almost 20 years. I don't think he can bring something very different from previous candidates. He was already in government and didn't bring much change then".
It has been almost thirty years since Dayton agreed to end the conflict, and Bosnia has long been calling for change. As Aida Daguda says, "this situation we have had for 30 years is no longer bearable. The citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina deserve a normal life, like any other European country. The Dayton Agreement was the solution to the war situation, but we are ready for the next step. Although constitutional changes are an extremely difficult and demanding process, we must move in this direction. While the young activist, Dorde Mirković, laments the lack of political awareness even among young people in the country and claims that "we should focus on becoming more spiritually adult". The young man wishes that "young people should not be afraid to take the initiative to be more active, to stand up and, first of all, educate themselves, and be more spiritually connected to this place, being aware of the political situation".
And the director of the BiH Centre for Civil Society Advocacy says that "what we lack is the opinion of the people, the discussion about the future of our country on many levels. Until now, citizens and civil society in general have been excluded from important processes and decisions, and this must change. [...] Our citizens deserve a normal state, peace and democracy".