After Izetbegovic's Nomination for B&H Presidency

POWER MORE DEAR THAN THE GIVEN SOLEMN WORD

AIM SARAJEVO, June 16, 1998

In the last few days the Sarajevo media have been wondering whether Izetbegovic will run at the September elections. It was a kind of political betting which started with his recent statement that "if this mind continues to serve me I will not run for office at the September elections". But, here betting on politicians' statements and promises is a lost case.

Izetbegovic has changed his mind, and will, nevertheless, run at the elections. However, he found a justification in the fact that in the Balkans politicians stay in power for life and he had to give in to the wishes of the "grass roots" which demanded that of him because he is a politician who listens to his people.

Expectations that this time he would not run for office were rather firmly based, but obviously equally firm was Izetbegovic's well-known "love of power". Strong pressures of the international community have first undermined the SDS, then the HDZ, which has recently dramatically escalated, so that there were serious doubts whether the three-legged union with the SDA was able to qualitatively function any more. And all the gloating of the SDA over the weakening of the umbilical twins with whom it stuck together in the last eight years through thick and thin, boomeranged on it.

The international community had a lot to lay at the SDA's door on this unnatural three-legged scales, and it did. Same as Izetbegovic's political partners in B&H perished both politically and physically, after a heart failure he himself also became physically and politically hopelessly vulnerable so that it was normal for him to start thinking about withdrawing. But, what is normal in any politician? The true argument for his withdrawal, although neither he nor the apologists of his withdrawal ever mentioned it, is the fact that he had been in power for already eight years (longest in history!) with a one-year term of office, and that for the first time as of this autumn he would not be the President of the Presidency and that it would be very hard for him to have someone else, this time a Serb or a Croat, as a "boss" even in an institution he himself never respected.

The second argument is a product of the first one. Since the authorities never relied on the institutions of the system, he would leave them and continued to control the situation through his party, whose leader he intended to remain, in all spheres in which the SDS had influence. Naturally, there are also reasons forwarded by his advisers. Since "Papa" was sick and old it would be good to think about successors and distribution of property while he was still alive because after Papa's death even the best of sons quarrel so it should be done while there was still time. In other words, to stick to the famous slogan "After Tito - There is Only Tito". As if that ever made anyone duty bound to do anything!

This second argument is the reason to start a real party out of Alija's populist movement because, among other things, he promised to transform the SDA into a civil party. There are many more other reasons! It was necessary to prove that for Alija the power was not all as it was for Tudjman or Milosevic, and especially that he was not some kind of a new Tito. Then a paper which publishes the SDA stances ("Dnevni Avaz") printed a survey according from all today's leaders Izetbegovic most resembled Tito. And that was supposed to be a compliment! The international community had to see the democratic superiority of Izetbegovic and SDA in contrast to dictators on the left and right, i.e. from Croatia and Serbia. And nothing!

And he has submitted his nomination. Again he will be the leader of SDA-Bosniacs and for the first time will not be formally the first. True, he will transfer even more power to the Party and at all costs be decisively first there: in other words, again outside institutions. His new nomination for a member of the Presidency by the SDA and the Coalition for an Integral and Democratic B&H (CD) - a pathetically called coalition of Haris Silajdzic's party, whose positions have been fundamentally shaken by his entering a coalition with the SDA, the marginal Civil-Democratic Party and the Liberal Party - shows that the SDA and CD Coalition are undergoing a serious crisis which only "charismatic personality of Alija Izetbegovic" can keep together. Namely, for a long time there have been strong factions within the SDA which have rallied around different personalities, interests, regional and political objectives and which would "the day after" engage in a battle that has not been seen since the disintegration of another "integrating" factor - the SKJ (League of Communists of Yugoslavia) in the former common state.

The CD Coalition would break up very easily because his withdrawal would open the question of the first man of this Coalition. Even a small trial balloon launched two weeks ago showed that the SDA grass roots (always those grass roots!) are against Silajdzic as a possible presidential candidate and Izetbegovic's successor. And Bikasic, Ganic or the ever more present Mostar Lord Mayor, Orusevic, are still too weak to become first after Alija. This is probably all according to his will, because as all other totalitarian leaders, he is clearing the space around him in order to create the impression of being irreplaceable, impossible to substitute - i.e. charismatic.

As far as new nomination of Izetbegovic is concerned, it should be remembered that the "wishes of the grass roots" point to another important aspect of the problem. This cannot be openly discussed within the SDA, but the politocratic - financial structures (or better said the Mafia), which have grown strong and hold a part of B&H in their hands, also need Izetbegovic, whose image among his people is still that of an indisputable leader, because he can serve as a high quality screen. Among the people Izetbegovic enjoys a reputation of an honest man who, allegedly, has no idea what others are doing behind his back same as in the old story that "Tito is good, but those surrounding him..." or that "Tito has no idea, they are all hiding it from him...". Such an opinion suits Izetbegovic also so that it is not necessary for either him nor his namesakes to own anything personally, since the Mob controls things as a family and it doesn't really matter who owns which firm, business premises or a hotel.

As far as Izetbegovic's charisma is concerned, that is something to talk about. Not only is a large number of Bosniacs fleeing B&H, but also Europe running away from him and his charisma, but the number of those who have tied their destiny to B&H and want him as a leader is also growing smaller. A large number of veterans, Shiite families and invalids, especially those who have felt the nightsticks of his policemen on their backs, refugees from Podrinje whom he and his party have betrayed in different ways, cannot see him as a leader and on top of that, a charismatic one. And what can serious-minded people think about a man who thinks one thing in the morning and quite another in the afternoon, who in the spring said that he would not run for office because he wasn't sure whether he would be in full control of his senses, if he keeps any sense at all. Still, he is a leader! He is the leader of all those whom the SDA gave a chance of getting rich overnight, of taking other people's business premises and flats, and those incompetent it appointed to functions which they never dreamed of aspiring after. He is the leader of all those refugees he still keeps in other people's flats, in Sarajevo for example, with an explanation that "no one would drive a veteran out of flat because of some old hag from Belgrade".

However, not for long because he will again be forced to give pre-election promises which will be hard to keep, especially once the privatization starts. He is also the leader of one third of B&H because he has reduced both the state Presidency and his own function to a leading position over a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which he shared the power with the President of a part of Federation and some Cantonal chiefs at the same time when his Co-Chairman in the Ministerial Council, H.Silajdzic, strove to establish an integral Bosnia and Herzegovina based on principles on account of which SFRY had disintegrated for good.

Zeljko IVANKOVIC

(AIM Sarajevo)