Balkanalysis.com

By Apostolis Karabairis*

Internal correlations and trends in Bosnia and Herzegovina have changed considerably over the past few years. However, contrary to the early post-war years, academic and press analysis has covered much less the recent developments in the country, following the interest and policy shift from Clinton’s democratization doctrine of the 1990s to Bush’s counter-terrorism doctrine of the 2000s. Consequently, the case is that very often the models used to understand the current Bosnian reality are now obsolete and do not respond to the recent changes.

All through Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first post-war decade, our understanding about the country was that it followed a linear evolutionary progressive path to what was defined as a desirable goal by the international community (stability, state integration, inter-ethnic reconciliation etc.). Indeed this process, under the guidance of the international community and the given Dayton framework, was presenting a net positive outcome year by year, despite the various obstacles, and was giving an impression that achieving positive peace and functional state was “only a matter of time.”

Further, the understood description of Bosnia’s party system used to be simple and clear as well. All parties had mono-ethnic electoral base (even those maintaining a somehow multi-ethnic cadre) and the degree of nationalistic attitude was the criterion according to which parties were classified on the political axis. This classification was uniform in all three ethnic political realms: the war-time right-wing dominant parties were on the one edge of the axis as the ostensibly most nationalistic ones (SDA, SDS and HDZ for Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats respectively), while on the other edge there were parties identifying themselves as left-wing, and perceived as favouring inter-ethnic re-approach (notably SDP and SNSD); the in-between space was taken up by parties which had split from the dominant nationalist ones, rejecting their hard-line practices, but still favoring ethnically exclusive policies.

However, after the year 2005 this scheme was no longer suitable to describe the Bosnian political scene. By the general elections of the following year, a reshuffle within the party system became apparent. After the retirement of the hardline and so-called “father of the nation” Alija Izetbegović in 2000, leadership of his dominant Bosniak party SDA was granted to Sulejman Tihić, a new-generation politician, who distanced the party from much of its past and moved it toward more moderate stances.

On the other hand, SBiH, the standard center of the Bosniak political spectrum, saw its attitude hardened due to the return to active politics of its founder Haris Silajd‰ˆÃ¦ić, a war generation politician, who tended towards more obstructionist and non-compromising tactics, albeit while still cloaking these tendencies in a civic discourse and argumentation.

In Republika Srpska in early 2006 the SDS-led government coalition broke apart and the opposition SNSD leader and the West’s protˆšÂ©gˆšÂ©, Milorad Dodik was voted in to form a new government. Soon after the mid-term government change, the Bosnian Serb political scene experienced a rapid rise of nationalist calls from SNSD, the party that had been considered as constituting the core of the Serbian anti-nationalist movement. Based on nationalist-populist rhetoric a few months later in the October elections, SNSD achieved a sweeping victory, which further allowed its leader to solidify a rule leaning towards autocracy.

As for the Croats, in spring 2006 their dominant nationalist party HDZ, which up to then had enjoyed a near monopoly on the Bosnian Croat electorate, faced a major split, when a great share of the party’s members left to found a new party, HDZ 1990. The latter took over the edge of the Croatian political spectrum, as it turned out to be more obstructionist and less prone to compromise, thus rendering the remainder of the HDZ comparatively more moderate.

Apparently the three ethnic political realms are not uniform and there are no clear ideological cleavages among the parties any more, while any comparison among them should now take into account more dimensions.

This realignment of the Bosnian party system may be in part the reaction of the local political elites to the transition their country is going through. On the one hand, international representatives have made it clear that their engagement is soon coming to an end, so domestic politicians are now more and more often called on to assume full responsibility and make deals with potential political cost, regarding issues that until now they have gladly ceded to the hands of an unaccountable international community.

On the other hand, the launching of state constitution reform debate (since the Dayton Agreement, whose part is the state constitution, allows for amendments to itself for ten years after its entry into force, namely December 2005) has brought inter-ethnic power-sharing back to the negotiating table. In this transition setting local elites, who seek their new share of power, do not have an incentive for constructive talks.

History has shown that under the current circumstances, when one demonstrates willingness for compromise, they at the same time risk having their power shrunk, as was the case with the HDZ split; on the other hand, when one makes narrow appeals to their respective ethnic constituency, power can easily be gained, as has been the case with Dodik and Silajd‰ˆÃ¦ić.

Indeed in this concurrence many observers point out serious setbacks and a remarkable rise of nationalist rhetoric, which until 2005 had been in a declining trend, and for the first time many of them are less confident to the Bosnian project as time goes by.

This development has led deep intervention advocates to speak about the need for stronger international guidance, as long as the all-important constitution reform period lasts, since Bosnian politicians apparently are not mature enough to go through this procedure on their own without causing a turbulent atmosphere that could put at risk what has been achieved so far.

However, even if domestic parties were able to smoothly arrive at an agreed settlement, the involvement of the international community would still be necessary. Because the current parties have been created and developed within the existing setting that reinforces ethnic exclusion, any new framework agreed by the parties themselves will do nothing but perpetuate their existence and way of functioning.

That is why the Office of the High Representative of the international community should make use of its imposing authority for as long as it retains such powers and craft a new legal framework that encourages local actors to transcend the existing status quo of political isolation behind ethnic lines, by making parties dependent on support of all ethnic groups.

Of course, such an effort would meet status quo parties€šÃ„ô resistance, but once a solution like this is imposed and becomes binding for all, not only existing parties will adapt to the new framework, as they have been doing to date, but it will also boost the opportunities for alternative forces within the Bosnian society that are now truncated by the current unfavourable regulations.

What is important is that this is not a zero start point, because there is already small capital to begin with. Apart from the sizeable solidified successor party SDP, which bears the pre-war anti-nationalist heritage of the former regime, there are a couple of recently founded parties calling for an overcoming of the status quo, which, far from being marginal, have made remarkable gains in the last elections. These are the People’s Party-Working for Improvement (“Narodna stranka€šÃ„¶Radom za boljitak”), and Our Party (Na‰ˆÂ°a stranka), which moreover hold the unprecedented achievement of having a significantly multi-ethnic electoral base (even SDP’s voters are largely Bosniaks).

If the international community successfully assists Bosnia and Herzegovina in navigating the rocky waters of the state constitutional reform period, and sets up institutions that favour inter-ethnic interdependence, it will have crucially contributed to a viable and functional Bosnian state. Of course, the strong sense of ethnic belonging in the country will continue to be a salient factor, but the larger point remains to make Bosnians understand that their interests lie in common action and not in confrontation. Having done this, the international community can make its long-anticipated dignified exit, guaranteeing that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a source of instability for the region, but a success story instead.

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*Apostolis Karabairis is a Greek scholar who has spent considerable time in Bosnia and Hercegovina. He holds a degree in Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies from the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, and is soon completing his MA in Southeast European Studies at the University of Athens. Along with his field research in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Apostolis has worked for the Association of Election Officials there and the Kokkalis Foundation in Athens.