Issue No. 607
International
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10 - 16 October 2002 Issue No. 607 International |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
The nationalists' return
The nationalist parties that led Bosnia into war 10 years ago are back with a vengeance. Adisa Busuladzic reports from Sarajevo
Bosnia's three main nationalist parties have won the 5 October elections, diminishing hope for radical political change in this impoverished and troubled European country. Results showed a clear victory for Bosnian-Muslim nationalists of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and Croat and Serb nationalists of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). These are the same nationalist parties that led Bosnia into war 10 years ago.
The victory of the nationalists was greatly helped by a low turnout caused by voter apathy. The elections are the sixth in Bosnia in the past seven years. Small wonder, then, that only 53 per cent of registered voters went to the polls last weekend.
For the first time since the war, the elections were organised without international supervision. Representatives of the international community, although pleased with the election's organisation, displayed their disappointment with the final outcome. "The weekend vote was a protest," said Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative of the International Community in Bosnia. "It was a cry for help, not a vote for more of the same or a return to the past," he added.
The Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992-1995 war by splitting the nation of four million down wartime front lines into a Serbian Republic and a Muslim-Croat Federation, also established the post of High Representative to oversee civilian aspects of the peace agreement. While the High Representative claims that the election results "do not mean that Bosnians want to revert to divisive nationalism", other prominent members of the international community are less optimistic. They admit, off the record, that all hope has been lost for this country now that a pro- Western ruling coalition has been defeated by nationalist parties.
The election results have also been a slap in the face for representatives of the international community who have effectively run Bosnia since the Dayton Peace Agreement. The current political system in Bosnia was negotiated at Dayton by the nationalists, many of whom have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. The agreement effectively rewarded policies of ethnic cleansing implemented by the nationalists during the war.
When, in November 2000, a non-nationalist coalition of moderate parties won elections, it seemed that the partition trend had been reversed and Bosnia had been put on a path to peace and democracy. Put together with Western help, the ten-party coalition government known as the Democratic Alliance for Change (DAC), finally took power in the Muslim-Croat Federation and the state-level Council of Ministers in early 2001. It has ruled for the past two years with limited success.
During the present elections, international officials urged Bosnians to vote once more for the pro-Western coalition. However, despite threats that foreign aid might be at stake, the electorate punished Western-backed reformers by pushing them to third or fourth place at all levels of government, according to preliminary results. The results prove that the DACs task was simply too difficult to accomplish. In governing the federation and central government, the DAC has had the daunting task of battling corruption and national-territorial division, legitimised by the Dayton Peace Agreement.
Moreover, in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the US, the DAC urged a showdown with Islamist elements tied to Bosnian Muslim nationalists in the Party of Democratic Action (SDA). In doing this, the DAC upset its core Bosnian Muslim constituency and gave ground to its rivals in the SDA, calling for Bosnian Muslim unity in the wake of a perceived threat to Muslims. Public accusations that it was forsaking human rights in order to appease Americans became more vociferous.
In short, various events on the international and national level that preceded the elections made it hard for the DAC to promote its own achievements. During its rule Bosnia has finally become a member of the Council of Europe and was put on the threshold of completing the "road map" leading to a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union (EU). The DAC also made significant progress in negotiating constitutional amendments that were a major step in revising Dayton structures. But since Dayton rewarded nationalist policies of ethnic cleansing by creating one exclusively Serb entity and another for Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, it has also, perversely, created the system of their perpetual and continuous return to power. This happened on 5 October 2002.
Therefore, this most recent electoral victory by the nationalists comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with Bosnia. As for what it will finally bring, there are two possible outcomes. Either the country will sink into another inter-ethnic war, or the High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, will finally have to use all the powers vested in his position to force the nationalists from power. The international community would be advised to push for the second outcome, not so much for Bosnia's, but for its own sake. By removing nationalists from power by force, the international community could rightly claim that the will of the country's electorate was overruled for the benefit of the nation.
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