The Choice of the Government of the Republika Srpska

Ivanic's idea is just as simple as it is hard to carry out: he wants to form a cabinet which will prove in its first hundred day, even without money, that as far as SDS is concerned there are no better reformists under his command than cured nationalists, that real business can be done in RS only with those people the citizens have elected and that RS is ready to do everything just so as to save itself from disappearing.

AIM Banja Luka, January 13, 2001

Anyone who even after Friday, January 12, when the news RS Government headed by Mladen Ivanic was elected, still thinks that this economist from Banja Luka is not a courageous politician, will not be doing so much the injustice to the new Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska, as much as to the very idea of political courage. When he selected expert government in which, according to him, there are 14 doctors and masters of science, while his opponents among doctors and masters are counting the SDS members, Ivanic found himself in the same situation in which he had been on two pervious occasions when he refused to crown his term with the prime minister's post at all costs.

It is worth remembering that in winter 1997/98, when RS President Biljana Plavsic entrusted him with the mandate, all he had to do was to thank the then SDS front men, Momcilo Krajisnik and Aleksa Buha, for their stubbornness and have all the foreign assistance of the world at his feet and enough time to show the voters that a bit more of foreign money did not necessarily mean a bit more of national treason. But he did not. Two years later, when the then Vice-President of the Republika Srpska, Mirko Sarovic, entrusted him with the mandate, Ivanic was not in a much better position than he is now: he had to betray either foreigners or voters. He did neither: among both he had too many admirers to hire his promising position to SDS which at that time did not want Ivanic that much as much as it wished to be rid of his predecessor Milorad Dodik.

A CHALLENGE ISSUED TO THE FOREIGNERS: The question is why has Ivanic now, by selecting a Government with SDS members, sacrificed his position (the only one of all RS politicians that can be considered promising) enjoys among the foreigners and all that for the sake of a Government which very few believe will succeed. Naturally, it is unwise to analyse the motives of a politician.

But, if we agree that Dodik's Cabinet has long ago ceased to be a government of any kind, but is only a group of budget users who leave the government same as guest workers return home from abroad, it turns out that at this moment RS is so divided that it can either have Ivanic's Government or no government at all.

In brief, Ivanic's irreplaceability can be considered commendable for him, but is disastrous for RS, which warns that the situation has never been worse. That is why his joining the game is courageous: had he given up again this time, his favourable position among voters and foreigners would amount to mere grumbling of a sharp-witted hothead who always knows what is wrong, but does nothing to change it. When on Friday he presented to the RS Parliament his Cabinet in which, despite foreign wishes, he included SDS members (true in small number and cautiously), Ivanic rather boldly issued a challenge to the international community. His decision was actually a direct question to them: if you do not see me, even with SDS in the Cabinet, as a reformist, that can only mean that the only reformist in RS is Dodik. But anyone who thinks that, be it the American Ambassador to Sarajevo, Thomas Miller, must question his own political judgment. That is why the international community remained silent all day on Friday, aware that Ivanic has challenged them seriously and that his challenge is not like some Sarinic's wretched statement or Kalinic's hammering.

And while foreigners kept silent contemplating how to meet the challenge, the locals, as usual, betted. They competed in trying to guess whether Ivanic brought to his Cabinet one or four (according to the press agency ONASA) or as much as seven ministers from SDS (according to Dodik).

OPPONENTS OF (EVERY) RS GOVERNMENT: Such Dodik's claim, uttered on his first opposition day after three years, represents the greatest problem of Ivanic's Government. It actually shows that against this Government, often using the same arguments and even more often united, will be all those who are against any Government which includes SDS (Dodik, some foreign factors) and opponents of every Government in RS (Haris Silajdzic and radical foreigners). It would be ideal if Ivanic were to wake up one morning as Momcilo Krajisnik.

That is why the exact number of SDS members in this Government is unimportant, just as it is unimportant how many doctors of science it will have. Neither will the men at the head of its ministries be decisive for the success of that Government, at least in its first months. It will not be important how professional it is so that the fact how many doctors it has is just as insignificant as is the number of, for example, gynaecologists in its ranks. The only criteria of its success will be its loyalty to the international community which will, in al likelihood, condemn its composition in advance. But, it will also be thrifty with its money and praises, which is a good reason for Ivanic to be worried.

However, his idea is just as simple as it is hard to carry out: Ivanic wants to form a cabinet which will prove in its first hundred day, even without money, that as far as SDS is concerned, there are no better reformists under his command than cured nationalists, that real business can be done in RS only with those people the citizens have elected and that RS is ready to do everything just so as to save itself from disappearing. That is why the first hundred days of Ivanic's Government are the most important hundred days in the peacetime life of the Republika Srpska in which one of the two outcomes is possible.

The first - optimistic one: The foreigners truly want to test Ivanic and his Government holding the money in one and a nightstick in the other pocket, to catch them erring and flunk them for it, but also to reward them with trust for their good moves. However, such an outcome is less possible because in order to be successful (and more successful than any other Balkan Government in order to win the foreign recognition), Ivanic's Government would have to ask those same foreigners a thousand embarrassing questions. For example, why didn't they support this type of Government before but lost at least two years keeping Dodik alive on a life-support machine, without much use.

That is why the second pessimistic alternative is more feasible: according to this one Ivanic would go down the drain because of nationalists in his Cabinet which would serve as an ideal proof to foreigners that they have been right all these years, but that the Serbs cannot be helped. That is why many of them will do everything to assist the soonest possible collapse of Ivanic's Government, irrespective of the fact that with its failure RS would also disintegrate, that will serve to prove that crazy Serbs are to be blamed for everything.

DUAL DODIK: That is why the fact that some SDS members claim to have agreed to cooperate with the Hague, but not to send there the summoned Serbs, only shows that they have learned nothing and that their main ambition is to occasionally get a chance to beat with a gavel in the Assembly or for several months watch Dodik sweat in opposition benches.

This is corroborated by a thesis that Ivanic's Government will not be able to bridge a gap on the RS political scene. It is a matter or days when will Dodik start treating him as SDS in his statements: either "traitorously" insisting that one half of that party delegates will end up in the Hague, or "patriotically" accusing Dragan Kalinic, Mirko Sarovic and Dragan Cavic of "deregulating" RS by letting Wolfgang Petritsch force them into signing a document on accepting very hard obligations on December 12. If the Bosniac parties, most of which think that it is high time to deliver a final blow to the Republika Srpska, secure the support of international factors, that will inevitably push Ivanic to the right and Dodik forward.

That is why the worst solution would be for Ivanic's Government to be just a brief recess in which caterpillar Dodik would turn into Dodik a butterfly. Former Prime Minister, who can only be certain that he can never again beat anybody at the elections in RS, is not finished yet. The rest is up to Ivanic to convince SDS that there are some unpleasant things in RS that have to be done and that it would be better for them to do it than leave to someone else. SDS only has to let itself be convinced. Then it remains for foreigners to accept that there are not enough bad memories which should prevent them from striking a good deal. The only problem is that very rarely have three stars hanging over the Republika Srpska been on the same line.

Zeljko Cvijanovic

(AIM)