BOSNIAN ELECTIONS IN CROATIAN MEDIA

ALL BUT THE HDZ, OF COURSE

AIM Mostar, July 27, 1996

Almost regularly, and as the elections in Bosnia & Herzegovina are approaching, more frequently, it is possible to hear the highest Croatian officials "that Croatia gave, is giving and will continue to give its contribution to development of the peace process in the neighbouring state", stressing also the efforts to implement the Dayton accords. Considering the complexity of the international situation and uncertainty of disentangling of the Bosnian knot, it is somewhat logical that this contribution is proceeding slowly and that it is only occasionally accelerated by pressure exerted by the international community. Although it may be slow, Croatia is indeed giving an active contribution to preparations of the elections in B&H, at the moment by considerable efforts invested into informing and inviting the voters to participate in the elections, which is mostly addressed to the Croats fron B&H.

On the other hand, there is a number of arguments which give foundation to suspicion about sincerity of the Croat leaders, which is evident from the latest example how general elections scheduled to take place in September this year in B&H are treated. In this sense, activity of the ruling Croatian party during the last year's October elections in Croatia can be taken as a spot-check, when Croatian propaganda crossed the state borders and entered Bosnia & Herzegovina, making ignorant passengers wonder whether they were still in Croatia or whether they had entered another state. At the time, as they entered Herzeg Bosna, along with slogans, placards, graffiti, stickers, flags and other propagandist material, passengers were welcomed by huge banners with the face of the one man-leader of "the right party at the right time". Elections abroad, of course, are no precedent, but such a presentation in a neighbouring country is with no doubt a precedent. That is why representatives of central authorities in Sarajevo expressed their discontent with such activities in a protest, but of course nothing changed. The result was that a small number of the Croats decided to vote at all, but among the few who did, majority voted for the HDZ.

Now when the elections are scheduled to take place in B&H and when its citizens should be enabled "wherever they are" and in the best possible conditions and in as fair competition as possible to decide who they wish to give their votes to, Croatia has apparently taken a principled stance announcing that it would enable citizens of B&H to vote in Croatia, but that it would not allow promotion of B&H political parties. Whether this stance is actually so principled can be doubted not only from the aspect of the mentioned unprincipled behavior on the occasion of last year's elections, but also from the aspect of the question which parties are from Bosnia & Herzegovina. Indeed, there are numerous parties active in Croatia whose status, or more precisely organization is questionable, because it is difficult to say whether they are Croatian or B&H parties, just as noone in fact knows whether some parties in B&H are Bosnian-Herzegovinian or Croatian.

It is possible to say that the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) of Croatia is a - Croatian party, but it is in fact in the same relationship with the parent country as for instance the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) of Bosnia & Herzegovina with the Croatian HDZ. Of course, neither one one nor the other are cases of establishing cohesive links which would contribute to reinforcement of general connections and, God forbid, restoration of some kind of Yugoslavia. But, since contributions about HDZ B&H have lately become quite frequent on Croatian television exposing its leaders and officials, according to the stance that B&H parties would not be promoted, it can be concluded that the HDZ B&H is in fact a Croatian party. Therefore, spectators of the central TV daily news program can watch every day several contributions which speak about activities of the HDZ in B&H and interviews with its members and sympathizers. In a recent program called TV Parliament, broadcast at a regular hour in HTV as its program from Siroki brijeg, which spoke about the forthcoming elections, guests were President of HDZ B&H Bozo Rajic, President of the Federation B&H Kresimir Zubak and Jadranko Prlic, foreign minister of B&H. All of them - high officials of HDZ B&H! The others are unnecessary, of course, as if the elections existed only for the Croats, i.e. the HDZ, and as if for the Croats, even if they were all in favour of the HDZ, it was not important what their opponents think and have to say. It was not even considered necessary to offer a pretext as one could have expected, that it was all in Croat interest, on the basis of which by analogy with stances of the ruling party about the situation in Croatia it could be concluded that promotion of other Croat parties was not in Croat interest, because "they are destroying the unity of the Croat corps". On the other hand, principles are broken when dealing with "destroying" of the Bosniac corps. For example, promotion of the Democratic National Community of Fikret Abdic is allowed in Croatia, which is positively known to be a party registered in B&H, and therefore subject to the "provision" which does not allow promotion in Croatia.

In this sense, further "unprincipled" activities can be expected in promoting other parties which are influential in B&H, aimed at weakening the main rival in the struggle for power in the Federation - the Party of Democratic Action. There is a possibility that, despite the expressed ban, parties from B&H - not only those which are the most influential among the Bosniac population, the SDP or the UNSD for example, but also those who have support of the Croat population, such as HSS, HSP, HSP 1861, HKDU - will appear in Croatian media. This would be achieved simply by their appearances as guests at gatherings of their "brotherly" parties in Croatia.

Nevertheless, nobody should expect great tolerance in this respect, because an approach which would be too liberal could endanger even the prospects of the HDZ, which obviously is something the authorities do not wish to permit. One should expect, though, that state censorship will neutralize the ingenious party activists by "cutting" reports from the parts of gatherings which could be marked as election propaganda. This will be, along with the already mentioned "dissolution" of the Bosniac electorate, the only way to triumph over the main rivals in the election race - all but the HDZ.

PERO JURISIN