Bosniac Political Gathering

SDA REDUCING THE OPPOSITION

By establishing a four-member coalition under its control, the SDA has definitely removed the threat of Silajdzic's opposition

AIM Sarajevo, 6 May, 1997

The attention of the political public in Bosnia & Herzegovina, especially on the territory dominated by Bosniac forces, has lately been captured by announcement of creation of a new coalition which is expected to contribute to homogenization of the Bosniac political corpus before the September elections, but also of the national electorate. It is planned to gather under the umbrella of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) three political parties with the civic prefix, but with mostly Bosniac membership. These are the Liberals of Rasim Kadic, Party for B&H of Haris Silajdzic, and the Civic Democratic Party (GDS) headed by Ibrahim Spahic.

It was estimated that the Liberal Bosniac Organization (LBO) of Prof. Dr Muhamed Filipovic would also be a member of this election political block, but this member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts changed his mind even before he had properly made it. The information about LBO's membership in the mentioned coalition lasted but a single day. This was long enough, however, to make it a first-class political news, because presence of Professor Filipovic himself - who from time to time deserves the attribute of being a sharp critic of Izetbegovic on the domestic political scene - in that political quintet was an intriguing novelty. The other parties and their leaders are verified supporters of the Party of Democratic Action. With popular Tunja, the catch would have been even more significant, but the SDA did not wish to pay the high price which the leader of the Liberal Bosniac Organization had set for his political hide, maybe in order not to increase appetites of its old allies who are obviously easier in bargaining.

The political public is not surprised by such developments. Creation of the four-member coalition controlled by the Party of Democratic Action is in fact just legalization of the actual situation prevailing on the Bosniac political scene. After Kadic's Liberals and Spahic's Civic Democrats had been simply shattered in last year's elections, without a single seat won in the parliament, and Silajdzic had to face minor response of his supporters (eight per cent), they were attracted by the "generous" offer of the SDA to participate in executive state agencies with their representatives within the quota reserved for Izetbegovic's party. That is how Silajdzic became the leading Bosniac member of the Council of Ministers of B&H, and for Kadic's and Spahic's party colleague Nedjeljko Despotovic, a post was ensured in the federal government.

Silajdzic's Settling of Accounts

These political "gifts" were indeed of the Trojan kind. Time has come to settle the debt for the advance payment received last year, which obviously neither Kadic, not Silajdzic, nor Spahic have had the intention to evade in any way. Moreover, it seems that they are doing it gladly, that the coalition with the SDA has become their longterm political and partisan concept. Haris Silajdzic is especially clear about it, and seems to have played the main role in creating the manner in which the four-member election block would be formed. This is especially important, because only Silajdzic with his Party for B&H was a true rival (if any at all) to Izetbegovic's party, although not to the extent he had hoped for when 17 months ago he had left the SDA. The Liberals and the "civilians" belong in the group of quite marginal political parties which won only 8,200 votes in last year's elections for the Bosnian-Herzegovinian parliament. But, even with them, the SDA has a very clear and practical interest in mind.

The main effect of this move which certainly reinforces the internal Bosniac position of the Party of Democratic Action is neutralization of Silajdzic's opposition. He has fully brought his own political stand out in the open. Close cooperation with the SDA, in view of the already taken high post from its quota, is his fundamental political strategy. In any case, there will be no confrontation any more. And this is quite enough for Izetbegovic's party. It had always feared the popularity capricious Silajdzic enjoys among the Bosniacs. Due to the accounts he had settled with the leading Bosniac party, Silajdzic muddled with the membership of his own party - the Party for B&H. This especially refers to a part of the leadership, who are expressedly civic oriented, and partly non-Bosniac. By Silajdzic's reconciliation on the high level, they were brought to the situation to become promoters of the policy of the SDA, the extremely national party. It is hardly possible that Silajdzic will ever be able to set this thing right, to prevent further crumbling down of his party which is a demoralized party even as it is (after its last year's election failure). Time will show whether this move is the result of Silajdzic's careful calculation, when he has decided to enter the game with the SDA again. This will become clear when his party becomes completely marginal, which it is obviously threatened to be. Silajdzic himself will in that case, like on a tree left without its root, fall off as a dried bough.

Respectable analysts from Sarajevo do not exclude the possibility that the SDA will constantly make concessions to Silajdzic in order to cut him off from his party basis and in this way politically ruin him, or, which is also a current option, legalize him as a returnee (and repentant) and accept him into the ranks of Izetbegovic's party. The SDA which is poor in prominent figures, always gladly welcomes politicians of Silajdzic's calibre and public rating.

The SDA has the same pragmatic interest in winning over Rasim Kadic, the still youngish politician loved by the Bosniac public, regardless of the fact that an enormous majority does not share his political platform. As the president and a public figure, he has by far outshone his own party, so as a man who does not conceal that he has chosen politics to be his profession, he is obviously facing the question of his own future. The SDA has a remedy for his ambition - it will offer him a high post. First the post of a minister, and then maybe a higher one, depending on how much Kadic will progress in rapprochement to the political platform of the SDA. For the time being, he manifests considerable diligence in doing it.

Image of a Civic Party

In the camp of Ibrahim Spasic there is no prominent political figures, but the civic epithet in the name of this party is sufficiently attractive for the SDA to invest some of its capital into it. In this way the SDA will not succeed in buying a civic image for itself, because Spahic's reputation is not esteemed too highly in the public, but it will nevertheless, with GDS, demonstrate at least a symbolic openness to this political option.

On the occasion, journalists recalled Izetbegovic's announcements made on New Year's eve that at its next convention in the middle of the year, the SDA would make a shift towards the civic political concept. Creation of the coalition with three apparently civic parties is believed to be an expression of this Izetbegovic's aspiration. This aspect especially attracted attention after an information was placed through the journal Dnevni avaz, which is close to Izetbegovic, that creation of the coalition with the "civilians" caused discord among the leadership of the SDA. Rightist leaders Omer Behman, Hasan Cengic and Mirsad Veladzic were indicated as opponents of this union. This journal, which mostly writes what the top echelons of the SDA think, even assessed that "the civic idea has once again got the upper hand of the narrow national concept existing among a certain number of people in the leadership of the party". All that almost sounds as an invitation for their differentiation. That is why one of Izetbegovic's motives could be curbing, and maybe even forcing out the extreme rightist faction with which he has not been in the best of relations for a long time and which he would gladly get rid of. One should also be aware of the fact that the conflict with that same rightist faction was one of the major reasons for Silajdzic's split with the SDA. His joining the old flock might have therefore been conditioned by political degradation of Behmen and his followers. On the political scene of Sarajevo, realistic observers mostly believe that in the turn towards the civic concept, the SDA could do much by suppressing its "fundamentalist" faction which, during the war, played a powerful political and military role.

But, there is still no question about turns towards civic political platform in Izetbegovic's party yet. Moreover

• the manner in which the international community is conducting the peace process in Bosnia & Herzegovina (by making solely the national concept and negotiations of national oligarchies legitimate) discourages such turns.

In Bosnian developments and processes which will take place in the near future, national and political homogenization of all three nations will not be seriously threatened. National elites personified in the SDA, the SDS and the HDZ will maintain exclusive right to essentially determine the destiny of "their" respective nations and whole of Bosnia & Herzegovina. In this sense - by swallowing parties led by Silajdzic, Kadic and Spahic - the Party of Democratic Action has increasingly added to Bosniac monolithism.

VLASTIMIR MIJOVIC