TRAPPED BY PROVINCIAL PETTY POLITICS

Implementation of Local Elections in RS

AIM Banja Luka, 18 November, 1997

Although local (municipal) elections in Bosnia & Herzegovina were expected for a long time and with impatience, implementation of their results is going with much difficulty and it is taking much more time than expected. The problems have, obviously, arisen with multiparty democracy, but also with multi-ethnic composition of the municipalities, especially those where it enables parties of just one ethnic group to completely control the authorities.

Sluggishness in implementation of results completely justifies the assessment that these elections interested both the participants-parties and the participants-voters only as a measure of the relation of political forces and as an additional possibility for new election campaigning, and not as an aspiration to improve life of the people by establishment of local authorities. This refers especially to Republica Srpska because of the forthcoming early parliamentary elections, although all eyes in it, like in the B&H Federation, are in fact fixed on September 1998 and general parliamentary and presidential elections which, at least according to the Dayton accords, should mark establishment of a stable four-year rule. This is obvious, primarily, by the fact that political parties in RS are presenting in public mostly general political issues and problems of national and state (or more precisely entity!) interest, manifesting almost no wish to deal with local issues. On the other hand, in constituting municipal assemblies and executive agencies, in majority of cases, due to the fact that in a very small number of municipalities a single party has won more than half seats, everything can be brought down to petty politicking and games with personnel changes.

It is nevertheless difficult to generalize the course of implementation of local elections in RS, just as it is difficult to reach a joint approach to the stand of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that all the parties which have elected representatives in municipal assemblies should participate in formation of executives authorities in municipalities. Even in environments where this was successful, a bitter taste remains because of unprincipled coalitions, while in others even some of the previous alliances have been terminated.

Banja Luka is the best example of blocked democracy and a municipal assembly in which the deputies know not what they want except to get hold of the posts in the city they desire, through inter-partisan games, primarily that of the mayor which ensures very little responsibility but plenty of propaganda and public appearances. For the post of the head of the executive authorities there is hardly anyone interested.

Due to the same number of deputies of the Socialist Party and the Serb Party of Krajina and Posavina in the municipal assembly (12 deputies each, or 18 per cent of the votes) and different inter-partisan coalitions and fluctuations depending on circumstances, election of the head of the municipal assembly seems almost impossible. Probably that is the reason for the proposal to have the elections in Banja Luka repeated, or to have the citizens vote for individual candidates directly.

Some party officials even offer the mandate to OSCE to elect the chairman of the municipal assembly (mayor). That is the reason why this organization has publicly stated the decision that the elections for the mayor of Banja Luka would be repeated in as many rounds as necessary for a single candidate to win the majority of votes.

Problems are much more prominent in municipalities in which parties from the B&H Federation have won a substantial number of seats in the parliament so that they can influence not only formation of the administration but also execution of power. Expectations that they would be able to effectuate this influence in accordance with the number of seats won have mostly failed, however, because parties seated in RS appeared united concerning distribution of posts. This happened in Prijedor, Zvornik, Doboj and other places. The Coalition for United and Democratic B&H did not even participate in constitution of some of the municipal assemblies or left them during sessions. In Prijedor, the representative of this political party participated in the principled agreement about distribution of posts, but the next day deputies of this party failed to appear at the assembly session. In Doboj, its representatives, discontented by what they were offered decided not to participate in the work at all. Zvornik got its mayor and other authorities although this Coalition has the largest number of deputies, but less than the united "Serb block" which prevailed.

There are other cases - in Ljubinje, one of the smallest Herzegovina municipalities, the authorities were elected thanks to the coalition of the Serb Democratic Party and the Coalition for B&H, and not the usual coalition of the SDS with the Radicals. Or, there is, for instance, the bordering municipality Jezero (Serb Jajce) where five parties, four Serb and the coalition for B&H divided among themselves the municipal authorities without much problem.

In Brcko, constitution of local authorities could not pass without the intervention of supervisor Robert Farrand, who, contrary to the results of voting, appointed the mayor from among the Muslim deputies (Mirsad Djapo).

But, that it is not all about interethnic relations is evident from the more and more frequent conflicts between coalition partners - the Serb Democratic Party and the Radicals. In Pale, the local authorities were formed by SDS alone, because they were not able to reach an agreement with the Radicals. Disagreements between the two partners in Teslic have been going on ever since the last year's parliamentary elections, and problems in their mutual relations exist in Bijeljina and Doboj as well. The predictions that controversies would arise as soon as the Radicals become one of the decisive factors of the authorities in municipalities have now come true.

Constitution of municipal authorities in RS shows that the only rule in this business is that there are no rules and that much of the job has been left to self-management habits of the participants in political developments. Organization of local authorities and the question of (self-)management of local communities will be the new big question for the assembly of RS which will be elected in the end of November in early parliamentary elections. It will be especially interesting to observe the practice of satisfying the multiethnic interest by means of national parties regardless of the fact that some of them declare themselves as civic.

In the lack of joint or common approach to problems of organization and operation of local authorities, on the scene are petty politicking games of individuals, most commonly local party leaders who are exhausting themselves in mutual persuasion and quibbling. For the time being, there seems to be no political agents which would be able to turn this local petty politicking into a different direction.

The local assemblies have just a few months to show their skill in managing "their" territories. When RS is concerned, early parliamentary elections, the still undefined stance concerning presidential elections and quite certain general elections in September next year, will almost prevent the newly constituted municipal elections to show their potentials. What will it be like in Srebrenica where appeals because of voting of non-existing people are still being considered and where constitution of local authorities has been prolonged until 31 december this year?

All things considered, these elections will be remembered in history only as another practical lesson in democracy or measuring time at a training which ensures a better starting position at the "grand prix" race in September 1988.

Dejan Novakovic