The Democratic Front (DF) recently tabled amendments to the countries Election Law in parliamentary procedure. Of course, it didn't take long for the HDZ and SNSD headquarters to make it known that they didn't want to talk about it. At the same time, however, the first people of these two parties are threatening to block the state unless the Election Law changes. If, however, they do not want to discuss material put out by DF, the only thing that can be concluded is that the amendments to the Election Law must follow the basic principles under which HDZ operates. So, it’s either the Election Law according to the solutions offered by the HDZ or the combined Čović-Dodik blockade of the state.
Does BiH need an Election Law that integrates or one that, as HDZ proposed, divides?
The Democratic Front (DF) recently tabled amendments to the countries Election Law in parliamentary procedure. Of course, it didn't take long for the HDZ and SNSD headquarters to make it known that they didn't want to talk about it. At the same time, however, the first people of these two parties are threatening to block the state unless the Election Law changes. If, however, they do not want to discuss material put out by DF, the only thing that can be concluded is that the amendments to the Election Law must follow the basic principles under which HDZ operates. So, it’s either the Election Law according to the solutions offered by the HDZ or the combined Čović-Dodik blockade of the state.
Where are the reasons for the rejection of even discussing the proposal made by DF?
The fact that it does not put a sign of equality between HDZ and the Croats, that it integrates rather than disintegrates, and that ultimately, it protects the Croats far more than the existing Election Law protects them. Therefore, where they were in the case of the Proposal for the Law on Constituencies and the Number of Mandates of the FBiH Parliament, submitted by the SDP and the DF at the end of 2017. The same one rejected by the HDZ on the pretext that it did not comply with the Constitutional Court's ruling, that Croats would again be discriminated against, etc.
Although, in the 2017 proposal, things are different. This proposal respects the fundamental principle of the balance of civil and national - which is a conditio sine qua non for the functioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state and as a society. And, it went far beyond what the existing legal solution allows when Croats and their survival are in BiH. In addition, the solutions from that proposal speak in support of the above. According to him, the territory of the Federation is divided into 12 constituencies that do not necessarily overlap with the borders of the cantons.
And this achieves more uniform balance between the number of voters and the number of mandates in the Civil House of the Federal Parliament. In fact, the European civic principle is respected significantly more than in the existing solution - that one term belongs to approximately the same percentage of citizens in the total electorate of this part of the country.
The proposed solution of the SDP and DF also ensures the parity representation of Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks in the House of Peoples of the Federal Parliament, as well as adequate representation of citizens of the Federation who do not declare themselves members of the three ethnicities. The solution, translated into numbers, consists of 17 delegates from each of the three peoples, seven from the quota of Others - members of national minorities and citizens who do not belong to any of the ethnic identities
At the same time, the Constitutional Court's ruling, which declared unconstitutional a provision in the existing Election Law that in each canton for the House of Peoples of the Federal Parliament, one seat in each canton, irrespective of the ethnic structure of the cantonal assembly, was also met with ethnic principle. The proposed solution, in other words, literally mirrors the constitutional provision that at least one seat in each canton belongs to the House of Peoples of the Federal Parliament, provided that at least one caucus is elected to the cantonal assembly.
And that is the provision on which, for all I care, you cannot say one bad word about. Because, not only that it stems from the Constitution, but also to the protection of those who are in some parts of the country - because of the horrors of war, but also the post-war system of government in almost equal measure - remained a significant numerical minority.
But all this did not prevent the HDZ from rejecting the proposal without being prepared to discuss it at all. For, it does not guarantee the HDZ exclusivity in Croatian representation, nor is it a guarantee of its unconditional participation in the division of political power. For the same reasons, the unpreparedness to talk is being expressed now, in the case of the proposed amendments to the Constitution and the amendment of the Election Law, which was referred to the parliamentary procedure by the Democratic Front. Incidentally, there is no willingness to discuss this proposal with the SNSD as it is in the function of integrating BiH as a state and society as a whole.
Proof of this are the practical solutions offered in the proposal. For example, the structure of the House of Peoples of the State Parliament is balanced nationally, in such a way that it enables the representation of Serbs from the Federation, as well as Croats and Bosniaks from the RS, as well citizens categorized under “Others” from the rest of the country. On the other hand, eliminates the House of Peoples as a parallel institution which has undermined civic representation, and its powers are reduced exclusively to issues concerning vital national interest - that is, in addition, the ones that are proposed and specified. The institution of early elections is also being introduced and the cases in which it is applied are elaborated - thus eliminating the possibility of disrespecting the expressed will of voters in the elections that we are witnessing all these years. With regard to the composition of the State Presidency, a solution is proposed to eliminate the causes of ethnic discrimination and to enforce the judgments of the Strasbourg court. Finally, a solution to Mostar's electoral rebus is offered.
The proposal made by DF is far from being “godsend”, for sure, I also have my objections to it. But the state Parliament, as far as politicians are concerned, is a place where complaints can and should be made. Why, however, reject any possibility of conversation in advance? And why not openly say the reason for this - that the proposal DF does not fit the ambitions of the HDZ leadership; who through the Election Law want to accomplish it’s goal which was same during the war - a new division of land and a territorialized Croatian unit, whatever it was called. In any case, the space in which the HDZ will have unrivaled power and through which, as long as it is formally part of a common state, it will be able to condition relations within its framework. About the same as Dodik does today, perhaps even in a more sharp lined form. After all, such an ambition was very clearly recognized in the draft Election Law, which was sent to parliamentary procedure by the HDZ, by urgent procedure - excluding, therefore, the possibility of talks or, possibly, amendment interventions - back in April 2017. And with the explanation that it intends to restore the dignity and the feeling that they are on their own - and otherwise they will remain second-class citizens. However, the solutions it offers do not inspire optimism - neither with regard to restoring dignity, nor with regard to the treatment of Croats, and of all others, as equal citizens of the country in which they live. Nowhere, for example, are there any letters about changes that restore dignity to Croats in the RS - and to non-Serbs in this part of the country at all.
The proposed solutions then brings to the same position the citizens of the second tier, much of the Croats in the Federation - and Bosniaks, of course - and Serbs in that status, like Croats and Bosniaks of the RS, have been all these years.
Because the existing solutions, if anything, provides them with elemental dignity and a sense of citizens' equal value with everyone else. And the solutions offered by the “protectors” of their national rights are going to take those solutions away. Why? Because under the existing Election Law, the vote of every Croat in the Federation, when the election of a member of the state presidency is on Wednesday, has the same value. At the HDZ's proposal, its changes are definitely disappearing. In other words, the division between “first” and “second” tier Croats is introduced.
You are wondering, of course, what is this court based on?
First of all, the proposed solution states only the only the candidate who gets the majority of votes on the move from Neum and Ravno can be elected a member of the state presidency, with not even the votes of Mostar, Kupres and Livno being relevant - with the Posavina being added to the first group mentioned, truthfully. Without them, I mean, the fact that you have twice as many Croatian votes as the other candidate wont help.
If, however, the proposed solution is realised, the following scenario is also true - that if someone in the area from Neum to Kupres and Livno won only tens of thousands of votes by Croats, but in Mostar and the rest of the so-called areas "C" and then the rest of the Federation - Tuzla, Sarajevo, Zenica-Doboj Canton, Bihać elsewhere - won by a total of 200,000 votes of compatriots, he still wouldn’t become a member of the presidency.
Indeed, to this position will be elected the one candidate who is from Neum to Livno won the most votes – even if it means winning twice as less votes than the person who would win the in ares mentioned beforehand.
The same is with the Federal House of People and then, by the logic of the law of coupled vessels, and the State Parliament. Because among 17 seats in the Federal House of People Croat citizens of Sarajevo or Una-Sana Canton cannot count on, avoiding Goražde on purpose, because they say there is no Croats anymore there. Therefore, aren’t they then second-class citizens? Just like in the case of electing the member of the Presidency are those of Mostar, Kiseljak, Travnik, Vitez, Fojnica, Vareš, Žepče if they are not in a combination with citizens of Široki Brijeh, Grude, Ljubuško, Livno or even with Sarajevo, Zenica, Bugojno or Tuzla citizens.
What to say about that? The HDZ's proposal to amend the Election Law, most seriously, irresistibly associates me with the practice of Pavelic's endechasia - the sacrifice of Istria, Zadar and the island of Mussolini - explaining that the sacrifice is mandated by Croatian interest. I wish they would have convinced me otherwise. But the difference is almost nonexistent. And if it is, only in one - here is difficult to specify who should be Mussolini. Everything else looks like an egg – “in order for some to be in the fat, everyone else is sacrificed”.
After all, at the time of the announcement of the HDZ's proposal to amend the Election Law, the bishop of Banja Luka also said in an interview with Sarajevo media, stating that the effect of worrying on the "guardians" of Croats was, in fact, "the absence of Croats in half the country."
I do think, however, that the bishop was too mild. And that the proposal for changes to the Election Law shows that the situation is much worse - that the Croats could disappear from a good part of the other half. In addition, the completion of "ethnic cleansing" would not bypass Serbs and Bosnians where they are nominally in the minority. Can such a proposal, then, and the demands behind it, be understood - by both actors in domestic politics and world centers of power, in the democratic world in general. I find it hard to imagine.
But real life often knows how to make unreasonable compromises. The possibility of such a scenario, I mean, should not be ruled out in this case either. Because both international and domestic actors have their reasons.
Not once in history has it happened that the world power centers agreed on solutions that they would not be ready to discuss in their own countries.
Elsewhere, however, they often push solutions that currently reduce tensions, although in the long run, they mean germs of new instability and new conflict. Bosnia and Herzegovina, after all, has experienced this more than once in the past 30 years.
On the other hand, I do not exclude that the solution offered in the HDZ proposal also suits BiH ethno-nationalists - whether they support it publicly or not. And that, with or without minor interventions, they are ultimately ready to raise their hands in the favor of the proposal - not because of their conviction that it is the interest of BiH citizens, but quite on the contrary, because of calculations to ensure that they themselves and their power are never questioned in one part of the country in the future.
However, it is undeniable that such solutions cannot be the pledge of a European future. And neither is it a popular pledge of peaceful Bosnia. Quite the contrary, it would only rehabilitate the values of past centuries - the values of tribal logic in particular - and would form the basis of future ethnic and confessional conflicts. And, no doubt, the continuity of the demographic discharge process that, after all, we all witness together today.