Bosnia and Herzegovina holds its tenth general elections after the war, with a political system inherited from Dayton that makes modernization difficult

The Peace of Dayton, which ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina three decades ago, left the country with a system of political organization that anchors it to that time and allows few opportunities for modernization. This Sunday, Bosnians hold their tenth general elections after the conflict, which ended in 1995, and in which power is inflexibly distributed between the three constituent peoples: Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats. Other minorities are left out.

The Bosnian electoral process is one of the most complex in the world. On this occasion, 3.4 million voters are called, who will debut digital recognition and automated counting of ballots to avoid any manipulation. Citizens will elect the three rotating presidents of the central State (each belonging to one of the main ethnic groups and elected on their territory), the state House of Representatives, the presidents of the two entities (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska) and their parliaments.

To the ethnic tensions, which are still very present as could be seen with the death of the Srebrenica genocide Ratko Mladic, is added the low birth rate (1.25 children per woman) and mass emigration in search of a future: the country has lost more than 20% of its population since the 2013 census. Aida Daguda, director of the Center for the Promotion of Civil Society, a Bosnian NGO dedicated to promoting citizen rights and accountability in the sector public and founded just after the war, remembers that despite its shortcomings, its country is not frozen.

"In everyday life, Bosnia and Herzegovina is much less divided than it appears from the outside. The vast majority of people are concerned about the same things, earning a living, raising their children, finding decent employment and having a prosperous future," he says. "Of course there are ethnic divisions and we should not pretend otherwise," Daguda acknowledges, "but they tend to be more present in political speeches and election campaigns than in everyday life."

"People lose sleep over the cost of living, corruption or the uncertainty of whether or not their children will stay in the country," he remarks. And he insists that Bosnia's biggest challenge is that "politics gets too much benefit from keeping it separate" and that "after years of stagnation and unfulfilled promises, many people, not just the young, have fallen into resignation and discouragement."

"A sectarian regime"

The system inherited from the 90s does not help, indicates political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic: "It is a political regime of a sectarian nature, in which basic democratic rights are subject to each individual's ethnic identity or lack thereof, and their place of residence." Mujanovic details that "not only is it essential to belong to one of the three constituent towns, it is also mandatory to reside in the correct area of ​​the territory. That is, the one where your group makes up the majority."

This specialist highlights that it is "a discriminatory system, as the European Court of Human Rights and the Bosnian courts themselves have ruled on several occasions, but it benefits the nationalist blocs entrenched in power, so the prospects for reforms - he believes - are slim."

Political Science professor Damir Kapidzic, from the University of Sarajevo, delves into that same idea. He sees that the system "is viable, but has serious deficiencies" and says that attempts at reform "have failed" so far: "Not all citizens can be elected members of the Presidency, not all can vote for a candidate of their own ethnic group, and citizens of the same group can in practice win two presidential seats (in the Bosnian Federation the entire census elects the Bosnian and Serbo-Croat presidents in office).

"Everyone agrees that the reform of the constitutional framework is necessary, but they strongly disagree about the direction and format that this reform should take. The underlying problem is that the rebalancing would reduce the weight and power of the political representatives of the three towns," explains this expert.

The EU, further and further away

Looking outwards, there are two burning questions. One is the lack of understanding between the US and Europe to elect the next High Representative, the international arbitration figure who is also a legacy of Dayton. The other is the increasingly remote prospect of accession to the EU. "The Americans are trying to shift towards a business-based stance in the area, in tune with political actors aligned with China and Russia, who undermine sectors that have traditionally been on the side of the West," Mujanovic clarifies. And, although "the EU opposes this change of course," adds this expert, "it does not offer any significant support. It is a foolish and absurd decision: it is leaving the Bosnians alone in their fight against the Americans."