Somehow, Bosnia Manages to Hold it Together

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Lawmakers in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Dec. 23 approved the formation of a new central government after 14 months of deadlock, raising hopes it will tackle reforms needed to become a European Union candidate country.

The EU sees this as opening the way “for renewed commitment of the political parties to allow for progress on the EU path of the country.”

Brussels currently considers the ethnically divided Balkan country as a potential candidate to one day enter the bloc, though French President Emmanuel Macron is opposed to further EU enlargement, maintaining that the bloc will need 20 years to deal with the continued fallout of the financial crisis in 2008.

Disagreements among Bosnia’s tripartite presidency of an Orthodox Serb, Catholic Croat and Muslim Bosniak over NATO integration had held up the formation of a government ever since election held in October 2018.

The parliament finally agreed upon Bosnian Serb economist Zoran Tegeltija as prime minister. The 58-year-old had previously served as finance minister in Bosnia’s autonomous Republika Srpska.

Despite that, the multi-ethnic polity remains dominated by nationalist rhetoric instead of moving toward rebuilding a country ravaged by three years of war that left at least 100,000 dead following the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The Washington and Dayton Peace Accords of 1994-1995 that ended the Bosnian War created a consociational, or power-sharing, political system at the national level in the state, regulating relations between the Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Christian Serbs and Roman Catholic Croats, the three “constituent peoples.”

They politically organised a three-segmental society in which none of the segments has an absolute majority. Within this entity, the Serbs have their own unit, the Republika Srpska.

The remaining two groups were then joined in an entity known, confusingly, as the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This part of the country is further subdivided into cantons with either Bosniak or Croat majorities. 

Some cantons are ethnically mixed and have special laws to ensure the equality of all constituent people. However, Bosniaks predominate in the overall entity, to the displeasure of the Croats.

At the national level, the arrangements require proportional and parity representation of the three ethnic segments in the central legislative body.

All important decisions in the state parliament are made by consensus and by qualified or special majorities.

The presidency, as a three-person collective head of state, is formed by the principle of ethnic parity of the three groups; they are elected on separate ethnic lists.

Since most ethnic Croats and Serbs would prefer that their regions be joined to Croatia and Serbia, respectively, this complex agreement is overseen by a High Representative, an international civilian with authority to dismiss elected and non-elected officials and enact legislation.

Since this highly unstable state is organized on an ethno-nationalist ideological hegemony that recognizes mainly the three main ethnic groups, other forms of identity such as class and gender go unrecognized. This is also the case with other minority groups, such as Jews and Roma.

There is no civil society that transcends ethnic identity and even social unrest is redefined in these terms.

Ethnic tensions remain constant. Bosniaks who returned to the Srebrenica, Visegrad and Bratunac areas of Republika Srpska after fleeing during the 1990s war claim they were intimidated by noisy celebrations by Serbs on Orthodox Christmas Eve Jan. 6.

The Bosnian Serbs also celebrated “Statehood Day” on Jan. 9, the anniversary of the founding of their breakaway entity in 1992, even though the country’s Supreme Court has declared this illegal.

The ruling class consists of ethno-political power-entrepreneurs who operate mainly in their own interest, resulting in deep corruption, with those in power appropriating most of its wealth, while government services are often neglected.

Some 23 per cent of Bosnians are living at or below the poverty line. The country’s unemployment rate stands at more than 20 percent and young people are emigrating in search of the opportunities that politicians have failed to generate at home. 

Since 2013, more than 200,000 people have left Bosnia-Herzegovina. On the other hand, last Nov. 7 French President Emmanuel Macron described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a “ticking time-bomb” due to its “problem of returning jihadists” from the Middle East. Not a pretty picture.