RFI EXPLAINS

Bosnia and Herzegovina: a complicated electoral system that legitimizes ethnic division

Women walk past election posters in Sarajevo, Bosnia, September 25, 2022. © Dado Ruvic/REUTERS

Text by: Simon Rico Follow

4 mins

Sunday, October 2, 2022, Bosnians are called to the polls for general elections at a time when their country is more divided than ever.

They must vote for several presidents, but also several parliaments.

A politico-administrative millefeuille that has become a real income for the nationalist parties which have shared power since the end of the war.

Explanations.

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According to electoral lists, Bosnia and Herzegovina has about 3.4 million voters.

An unrealistic figure in a country where there were barely 100,000 more inhabitants in 2013, during the last census.

And more likely between 2.5 and 3 million if we are to believe the estimates concerning the mass exodus of the last ten years.

Tired of living in a "Frankenstein country", where the rule of law remains a chimera, more and more Bosnians are voting with their feet: in 2021 alone, nearly 5% would have taken the road to foreigner in search of a better life and a safer environment.

But for whom and for what should the Bosnians vote on October 2?

This is a tricky question.

The

, concluded in Paris on December 14, 1995, have in fact transformed Bosnia and Herzegovina into an institutional puzzle, as complicated to decipher as it is to reform.

For nearly three decades, the country has had to deal with the constitutional annex of the Dayton peace accords, which was nevertheless intended to be only provisional.

A veritable "straitjacket", where political representation merges with community belonging, which

legitimizes the "ethnic cleansing" which has claimed more than 100,000 victims during the three years of conflict and more than two million displaced, half of the population at the time.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has no less than thirteen governments

Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina has no less than thirteen governments: one central, one for each of the two entities – the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Bosnian-Croat Federation (FbiH) – and one each of the ten cantons of the FBiH .

About 180 ministers compose them, that is to say about one for 15,000 inhabitants.

It's as if in France, there were more than 4,000!

According to figures from the Central Bank, 212,000 active people work in the civil service, which weighs in on almost a third of the country's tax revenue... But provides a base, as broad as it is solid, of voters won over to the parties that have found these jobs.

To share this precious manna, the ethno-nationalist formations, which have never lost power since the guns fell silent, play the same score over and over again, constantly raising the specter of threats and fear of others to keep the hand.

" 

 ", annoys the political analyst Amna Popovac.

“ 

 During these elections, no less than 90 parties present themselves, with the hope of recovering a piece, however small, of the pie.

A country divided

In this country so divided, the Bosnians vote together for only one ballot: the election of the 42 deputies of the House of Representatives, where the Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims sit.

But also “Others”, that is to say the 3.7% of those who do not belong to any of the three “constituent peoples”, or refuse this categorization.

As for the fifteen deputies of the House of Peoples (five for the Serbs, the Croats and the Bosnians), they will then be appointed by the representatives of the Parliaments of the two entities, elected separately.

The Serbs, Croats and Bosnians also vote on their side to elect "their" member of the three-headed presidency.

Due to the composition of the population in the FBiH, the election of the Croatian member is often determined by the choice of Bosniaks (70.4%), who are much more numerous than Croats (22.6%).

This greatly annoys the HDZ-BiH, the ethno-nationalist party representing this small community, which believes that this seat should go to it and has long been pushing for electoral reform aimed at guaranteeing it.

Even if it means blackmailing the third entity and threatening to boycott the polls and block the institutions.

The elections of Sunday, October 2, 2022 also hung by a thread: in the absence of an agreement, the high international representative ended up using his supreme powers to allocate the budget necessary for their organization.

Even though his power is contested by the Serbs and his appointment, in 2021, has not been validated by the Security Council because of Russia's opposition to maintaining this function, which is always supposed to guarantee peace and the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Our selection on the subject:

• To listen :

→ Bosnia and Herzegovina: should we really fear a war?

→ Faced with identity claims, living together

→ [Reportage] Bosnia and Herzegovina risks implosion

• To read :

→ In the spotlight: thirty years after the start of the war, has Sarajevo changed era?

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• Bosnia and Herzegovina