On Sunday, Bosnians will take part in elections whose results could affect the country’s bid to join the European Union, as well as the influence that the United States and Russia seek to exert over this small Balkan state, UNN reports, citing AP and Reuters.
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General voting began in Bosnia on Sunday morning. Most citizens of this multiethnic Balkan country are focused on everyday problems, while some leading politicians are stoking wartime tensions that have kept the country divided since the brutal 1992–1995 conflict.
About 3.4 million voters in Bosnia are electing three members of the country’s multiethnic presidency, members of the national parliament, and heads of government bodies in the two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (where Muslims constitute the majority) and Republika Srpska (where ethnic Serbs predominate).
Bosnia has a complex system of governing bodies created as a result of the 1995 peace agreement brokered by the United States. Its goal was to resolve the ethnic disputes between Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs, and Catholic Croats that caused the war.
On Sunday morning, Associated Press journalists reported numerous polling stations where voting failed to begin on time due to problems with the new digital voting technology — a measure introduced to address previous problems with the falsification of results.
Pro-Russian Dodik retains influence despite being absent from the ballot
A pro-Russian politician who, although not running personally, played a leading role in the campaign and intensified divisions that are raising fears of a new wave of instability became the focus of the election race.
Milorad Dodik — a nationalist and former president of Republika Srpska (where Serbs make up the majority of the population) — has been barred from holding public office after being found guilty of failing to comply with the decisions of the international representative overseeing implementation of the 1995 peace agreement.
Dodik’s party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, is likely to win the election in Republika Srpska; the politician himself has just returned from Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During his party’s final campaign rally, held on Friday evening in Banja Luka (the administrative center of Republika Srpska), Dodik told supporters that Bosnia was "dead." "It is an impossible country. It makes no sense," Dodik said at the rally, which was also attended by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Igor Kalabukhov.
Analyst Dragan Bursać noted that although Dodik is appearing on the ballot for the first time in nearly 30 years, he "still runs the process. He is everywhere."
"He has flooded the media space not only within the entity of Republika Srpska, but throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is obvious that measures to remove him from political life are not working — instead, he is using them to his own advantage," Bursać said.
Voting is taking place amid rising interethnic tensions
Although peace has prevailed in Bosnia in recent years, politicians continue to fuel divisions between Bosniaks (mostly Muslims), Serbs, and Croats. Leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, such as Dodik, insist on separating their entity from the rest of Bosnia, raising concerns in the West about a possible new outbreak of tensions.
Bosnia — one of Europe’s poorest countries — is still trying to recover from the consequences of the war that began in 1992 after it declared independence from the former Yugoslavia (which was dominated by Serbs) and an armed uprising by ethnic Serbs who sought to establish their own state and join Serbia.
More than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict, and millions became internally displaced persons.
Bosnia officially seeks to join the European Union, but the integration process has stalled despite the EU’s efforts to encourage the country’s divided leaders to cooperate in carrying out reforms.
On the eve of election day, Durak Miler, a resident of Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo, said that the politicians in power "are simply poisoning people with their speeches."
"It is time for us to change the old faces," he said. "They have been in charge for 35 years already... I think that whoever replaces them will work better in the interests of pensioners and low-income people."
Painful memories of the war were recently intensified by public commemorations in Serbia and among Bosnian Serbs of wartime military commander Ratko Mladić, who died at the end of August while serving a life sentence for genocide and other war crimes.
Bosnian Serbs regard Mladić as a hero, despite the fact that a UN court found him guilty of the mass murder of more than 8,000 Muslims (men and boys) in Srebrenica in 1995 and of other atrocities.
Senior Bosnian Serb officials attended a memorial service for Mladić in Belgrade, drawing sharp criticism from the EU and outrage from Bosnian politicians.
Electronic election security measures introduced
The authorities are using electronic voter identification and ballot scanning for the first time to prevent violations or organized manipulation that previously cast doubt on the fairness of elections. Salko Bijavica from the southern city of Mostar expressed satisfaction that "every vote will be counted," as well as hope that these changes would give people faith in the fairness of elections.
Most of the 75 political parties in Bosnia taking part in the elections are formed along ethnic lines: some operate in the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, while others operate in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Bosniaks and Croats predominate. These two entities are united by shared central authorities—the presidency and parliament.
The Bosniak nationalist "Party of Democratic Action" focused its campaign on preserving Bosnia’s unity and opposing Serb separatism. Bosnian Croats also largely support parties representing their ethnic community, including the Bosnian branch of Croatia’s ruling conservative party—the "Croatian Democratic Union."
Polling stations will close at 19:00 local time.
Many disillusioned citizens believe that politicians use nationalist rhetoric to avoid addressing important problems, such as low living standards and the mass exodus of young people from the country.
Ivan Silic from Mostar said: "I have seen no improvements since I started voting."
"We all know who is living well," he added. "They (the politicians) are better off, while for the rest of us everything remains the same as before."