A battle on a nationalist field

Nationalist rhetoric dominates election, while
debate rages over EU powers in the Balkan country.

In recent months, there have been signs of substantial shifts in party politics in both halves of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Just how significant those changes are will become apparent after Sunday (3 October), when Bosnians cast votes in an array of regional and national elections. 

In the Republika Srpska, there is now a united front against the dominant character in Bosnian Serb politics, Milorad Dodik, the autonomous region’s prime minister. Opinion polls suggest that this united opposition will appreciably reduce the dominance that Dodik’s party has enjoyed since 2006, when it won 41 of 83 seats in the regional parliament.

In the country’s other half, the Bosnian-Croat Federation, the man of the moment is a media magnate, Fahrudin Radoncic, whose party, Union For A Better Future For Bosnia-Herzegovina, has cut a swathe since its creation a year ago.

The EU’s powers

This is an election that is being fought on volatile territory. Radoncic is contesting the right edges of the broad field of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) nationalism, while Dodik has persistently, in various forms and words, promoted his central question: should Bosnia really be one country?

That question and the persistent stridency of nationalism puts the EU on the spot, because the Union will at some point assume responsibility for keeping Bosnia on its path from war to peaceful prosperity.

How much power it will need to do that is the subject of debate – and that debate, though only whispered because of the election season, has become more animated in recent months.

One impetus for the new energy was the departure in July of the European Commission’s head of delegation in Sarajevo, Dimitris Kourkoulas. A consensus is emerging among EU governments that his successor should in due course also become the EU’s next special representative to Bosnia (EUSR) and, as a result, the most influential international official in Bosnia. The post of head of delegation remains vacant and has been upgraded in pay and status to attract candidates of the stature needed for a future EUSR.

Fact File

Bosnia’s electoral system

The Dayton accords that ended the war of 1992-95 left Bosnia and Herzegovina with a complex electoral system intended to satisfy the three main ethnic groups: Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats and Serbs. It also divided the country into two largely self-governing entities, the Republika Srpska (RS), which is mainly Serb, and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One consequence of this complexity is that voters will on Sunday be electing representatives to a three-member national presidency, to the central parliament, to parliaments in the ‘entities’ of Republika Srpska and the Bosnian-Croat Federation, to cantonal assemblies in the Federation, and electing the president and vice-president of the Republika Srpska.

But, in terms of manifestos, the picture is simple: few parties campaign on a non-sectarian platform, a situation to which the ethnic structure of the political system contributes.

That ethnic delineation is now in question in one area. Bosnia has a three-member presidency, with one representative drawn from each of the three communities. Citizens of the Federation can vote for either the Bosniak or the Croat member, while citizens of the Republika Srpska vote for the Serb member.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in December that this set-up was discriminatory and unlawful. Bosnia’s parliament has, however, failed to amend its election law, raising the possibility of a legal challenge to the election’s results.

The presidency is largely ceremonial but has the constitutional power to set the outlines of foreign policy. This is currently only a notional power, because of a stand-off between the Serb member and his peers.

Another spur is the dashing of the EU’s hopes for Bosnia. For years, the EU’s mantra was “from Dayton to Brussels”: it was thought that the pull of EU membership would help the country overcome the ethnic divisions embedded in the Dayton peace accords that ended the 1992-95 war. But, as William Hague, the UK foreign minister, told European Voice this month, the prospect of membership “may not be sufficient on its own” to propel reform in Bosnia and maintain the peace process. This view is shared by an increasing number of EU governments – but they draw diverging conclusions.

Hague’s and the UK’s conclusion – which is among the toughest in the EU, but is in line with those of the US and Turkey, two countries that also oversee the implementation of Dayton accords – is that there is a need to “make sure that the international community is robust about challenges to the Dayton agreement”. In practice, this means that this camp believes some of the powers conferred on the Office of the High Representative (OHR) should be maintained.

Other member states, such as France and Sweden, are eager to close down the OHR and to ensure that, when the OHR hands over responsibility to the EU, the EUSR will have more limited powers. But they have become prisoners to their own policy of linking the OHR’s phase-out to five objectives and two conditions – known as ‘5+2’ – set down in 2008.

These are regularly challenged, particularly by Dodik. In two recent examples of breaches of the terms of the accord, the Republika Srpska took steps to demarcate the inter-entity boundary and adopted a law giving it the right to dispose of all property of the former Yugoslavia on Republika Srpska territory.

The EU divided

While such steps show that, once the OHR is closed, the international overseer – the EUSR – will still need some powers, there is little agreement on the scope of those powers. The little consensus there is can be seen in a paper drawn up before the summer by Robert Cooper, the head of policy planning at the EU’s Council of Ministers, which is serving as the basis of discussions for member states’ security ambassadors. It proposes that the EUSR “be able to recommend to the EU high representative [for foreign policy] that the Council impose travel bans and/or the freezing of assets in the EU”.

Since any such measure would need the support of all 27 member states, this appears a very weak deterrent. At best, it would be slow; at worst, it would be impossible. Existing powers give the OHR the power to sack public officials, to ban or fine political parties, and to repeal or impose laws.

Whether the EU strengthens its proposals may be affected by post-election developments. Many diplomats discount the aggressive rhetoric currently on display in Bosnia as mere electioneering.

But not everyone is so complacent. “A storm is brewing,” a senior diplomat from a member state with a close interest in Bosnia said. For Hague, “normal diplomatic activity is not something we regard as sufficient” to keep Bosnia out of trouble.

Click Here: Fjallraven Kanken Art Spring Landscape Backpacks