TRIUMPH OF THE DEFEATED

Elections in Bosnia & Herzegovina

AIM Banja Luka, October 2, 1996

Momcilo Krajisnik, Chairman of the Assembly of Republika Srpska, has descended to Sarajevo and shaken hands with Alija Izetbegovic. This was the first result of the Bosnian elections. Sceptics are afraid that it could also be the last one. That would be the briefest assessment of the just completed elections for the "higher level" in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Pre-election forecasts of numerous international officials that the elections in B&H would be the most complicated elections ever carried out, proved to be correct. The major problem referred to limited freedom of movement and unimplemented provisions of Annex 7 of the Dayton accords. In such conditions, it was rightfully pointed out, elections could be neither free nor democratic. The first serious wave of discontent and hubbub was raised by the form P-2, which entitled refugees to vote at the place of their new residence. The Muslims warned that this election rule was a specific manipulation which enabled the Serbs to win absolute majority in towns where they had been in pronounced minority before the war (Brcko, Srebrenica) and threatened to boycott the elections.

The organizers of the elections tried to alleviate this problem by postponing local elections for indefinite time and by introducing certain solutions which will be one of the curiosities these elections will be remembered by. For security reasons, the Interim Electoral Commission opened voting stations for banished Muslims in tents along the demarcation line, and for those who wished to vote in the places they had fled from, it supplied escorted transportation. If voting in absence and carrying ballots in sacks is added to this, the election mosaic of curiosities becomes complete.

In the election campaign which was conducted almost exclusively for the benefits of the ruling party, only Serb Television made a profit. A second of advertisement in its price-list cost 200 German marks, and for an hour of television presentation it was necessary to pay 100 thousand German marks. Practically all the money the OSCE had allocated to political parties for the election campaign flowed into the cash register of state-controlled television.

Promotion of the ruling Serb Democratic Party (SDS) went on incessantly on state television and radio. Editor-in-Chief of Serb Radio-Television as a pretext stressed that television covered activities of state agencies, and the fact that in this way the ruling party was winning recognition, according to him, was a combination of circumstances used by all parties in power. Nevertheless, live television and radio coverage of promotional gatherings of the SDS will be remembered as a cruel reminder of the period of single-party dictatorship.

Some of the TV programs of free party presentations were used by the announcers for promotion of the ruling party and for compromising the interlocutors. Spectators will remember extremely tendentious, unprofessional and uncivilized behavior of the announcer Milka Cemeridzic in a conversation of Sejfudin Tokic and Ruza Kasalovic with presidential candidate general Slavko Lisica.

Along with the well-organized promotion in the media, the ruling SDS organized very well its promotional gatherings in all the cities and towns. It started its election campaign before the official beguinning of the campaign with rallies of support to President Radovan Karadzic. Almost entire party infrastructure was engaged in the organization of promotive gatherings, but also the entire employed population and elementary and secondary school pupils. Gatherings were regularly accompanied by entertainers and public workers from Yugoslavia who are opposition to the regime in Serbia and who are known in RS as extreme nationalists (Dr Miroljub Jeftic, Dr Veselin Djuretic, Dragos Kalajic, and others).

Other parties were mostly promoted by application of classical method of rallies at which candidates for state offices and local politicians were presented. The Alliance for Peace and Progress (SMP) manifested the highest level of organization capabilities in this type of promotion, thanks to the political experience of its members and developed infrastructure. However, these gatherings mostly turned into meetings of the membership, and did not, therefore, attain the objective of winning over the undecided part of the electorate. That is why the excesses caused by members of the ruling SDS at gatherings of the SMP became in fact promotion of the ruling party.

Cases of political violence and terror directed solely against the SMP and members of the Socialist Party were also a function of the election campaign. This political party was in fact the greatest danger for the SDS, both because of its open support from Belgrade, and of well-organized party network and a large number of experienced, educated and uncompromised members. Strategy of political violence, warned the Socialists, was aimed at intimidation of members and supporters in order to interfere with their election campaign.

The course of the elections passed without incidents and major problems. That was the first post-election surprise which made many happy. This should be attributed special significance. The reason for it should be sought in the presence of observers and in the fact that the elections were prepared and carried out by state agencies of RS which are practically executive service of the SDS. All electoral commissions and polling boards consisted solely of respectable members of the SDS, and even members of executive agencies of this party. Opposition parties warned against this anomaly and demanded parity in representation in electoral agencies. Since these complaints of the opposition were ignored, and due to a number of manipulations during the elections, the opposition is announcing boycott of local elections if these demands are not met.

Results of the elections were received by the opposition with great surprise. The unexpected outcome surprised people in the Socialist Party (coalition SMP) the most, since they counted on 35 per cent of the votes and a post-election coalition which would neutralize majority of the SDS in the parliament. The Socialists had counted with certainty on the victory of Prof. Dr. Mladen Ivanic, candidate of the SMP and DPB for a member of the three-member Presidency of B&H, over Momcilo Krajisnik, candidate of the SDS. Decisive votes in favour of Ivanic were expected to arrive from the Federation, but the forecasts obviously did not come true. Nevertheless, the 300 thousand votes which Ivanic won are the biggest success of the opposition and determined who would be the first president among the three-member Presidency of B&H. If the votes of the Muslims had influenced the success of Ivanic, they were in fact useful for Alija Izetrbegovic, because thanks to them he got the better of his rival Momcilo Krajisnik in the number of votes won.

Great advantage of presidential candidate of the SDS, Dr Biljana Plavsic, over presidential candidate of the SMP Zivko Radisic, man with a "curriculunm vitae fit for a convent" was the other unpleasant surprise of the left oriented opposition. Radisic is a man with a dazzling career, an experienced politician and entrepreneur, and what is even more, a native of Bosnian Krajina (Malo Palanciste near Prijedor). Many counted on the possibility that the electorate from Krajina which along with Posavina forms 65 per cent of the population of RS, due to the rivarly between Banja Luka and Pale, would place their undivided confidence in Radisic as "their own cadre".

The ruling SDS had the worst results in parliamentary elections of RS. It won 45 deputy seats out of the possible

1. This is relative majority, but not two-thirds, which is the condition for reaching important decisions of national interest. Not even with 6 deputies of its coalition partner, the Radical Party of RS, SDS will not have the necessary majority, so that it will be forced to seek allies among other opposition parties which so far it did not wish to be in any contact with. Such distribution of forces in the Assembly of RS will certainly lead to new and unexpected coalitions in which alliance with the Party of Democratic Action which will have 14 deputies, will not be beneficial for any of the parliamentary party.

In election calculations, comparatively small number of voters from B&H Federation who voted in RS was also a surprise. Out of 140 thousand of these voters, only 14 thousand actually voted in RS. It is assessed that this too is the result of electioneering of the SDA which needed votes of these people in the Federation.

Suspicion about regularity of the elections was caused by the data of international officials that in B&H Federation 103 per cent of the electors voted, and in RS 98.5 per cent. The number of electors in RS, according to records of the OSCE, was 1,100,000, and in B&H before the war there were 1,350,000 Serbs. It turned out that in RS there were neither dead, nor killed, nor refugees... OSCE officials declared that the authorities of RS had not given them the data on these categories of persons and that due to that, it was impossible to reliably determine the size of the electorate. If the number of 100 thousand invalid ballots is added to this, it will be very difficult to eliminate suspicion about regularity of the elections.

The elections have confirmed that different nationalisms feed each other and successfully maintain each other. The old persons have been elected for a new policy.

(AIM) Branko Peric