Nationalists gain a seat in Bosnia’s presidency

Early results from three elections in Bosnia suggest that Croat and Serb nationalists will gain some control of Bosnia’s policy toward the EU.

Early results from three sets of elections held in Bosnia yesterday (12 October) suggest that the country’s leading political parties and personalities will remain in power for another four years, despite widespread disenchantment among voters, with a strong showing by nationalists in elections to the country’s three-member presidency.

A lack of political, social and economic progress – reflected in the very low number of laws passed by the outgoing state parliament – has led to significant public unrest, culminating in protests in February in each of the country’s three major ethnic communities – Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats and Serbs. Bosnia’s politicians have also been criticised by international donors – most vocally by the United States – for a failure to channel international funds to the victims of floods this May that are estimated to have caused €2 billion in damage.

A review of the past year published on Wednesday (8 October) by the European Commission concluded that Bosnia is at a “standstill” in the European integration process and has made “very limited progress in addressing the political criteria” set by the European Union. Commission officials said that the country was suffering from “a lack of collective political will”.

Turnout was, at 50.1%, well down on the figure for 2010, 56.5%.

Voters cast their ballots for the country’s presidency, the state-level parliament and the parliaments in the two constituent regions – the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska.

The principal preliminary results so far are for the country’s three-member presidency, which is responsible for foreign and defence policy, including the process of EU integration. The Bosniak member of the presidency, Bakir Izetbegović, has retained his seat, fighting off a challenge from Emir Suljagić, while Dragan Čović, a leading figure in the Croat community, is poised to take the Croat position vacated by Željko Komšić, who had reached his constitutional limit of two terms in the position. In the ethnically Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, Željka Cvijanović, a close ally of the  Republika Srpska’s president, Mirorad Dodik, is ahead of Mladen Ivanić, a former foreign minister and prime minister of Republika Srpska. Čović and Cvijanović hold positions that would increase the ethnic segmentation of Bosnian politics enshrined in the Dayton accords, the peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war. Izetbegović, a more pragmatic figure, would like more power to be given to the central control.

The international community has been pressing for Bosnia to adjust its constitution to bring it more into line with other European political systems, with the EU linking Bosnia’s prospects for membership to changes in Bosnia’s constitutional set-up.

The results of elections to parliament in the country’s two constituent regions – the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska – are expected later today. The outcome of elections to the state-level House of Representatives should also become clearer towards the end of the day. The 42-member House of Representatives is the lower house of the state parliament; the 15-member upper chamber – the House of the Peoples – consists of representatives selected by the regional parliaments.

Dodik’s nationalist Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) is likely to remain the dominant force among ethnic Serbs. Among the Croats, the principal question is whether the emergence of Čović, a nationalist, as a successor in the presidency to Komšić will translate into more seats for Čović’s Croatian Democratic Union (HZD). Komšić had portrayed himself primarily as a Bosnian rather than a Croat, helping to secure him support among Bosniaks in the Muslim-Croat Federation, where ethnic groups can vote for candidates without regard for their ethnic origin.

The Bosniak vote may also be affected by the death in late September of the long-time leader the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Sulejman Tihić, who, though he had left politics a year before his death, had remained a leading figure among the party’s less nationalistic and more socially minded wing.

The election was conducted under old rules that have been condemned both by the Council of Europe and the EU. Under the 2009 Sejdić-Finci ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, Bosnia is obliged to change electoral rules that limit membership of the presidency and of the House of Peoples to Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Štefan Füle, the outgoing European commissioner for enlargement and neighbourhood policy, warned last year that the EU would regard the election as illegitimate, as did the Council of Europe. Füle said last Wednesday that the EU would work whatever government emerged from the election.

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