Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A success for destructive forces

Student Amina pulled her finger out of the machine at a polling station in the center of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Sunday and was amazed. Because a piece of paper with her photo was immediately printed out. She had to sign, get her documents and only then could she go to the voting booth. Their ballots were then scanned and cast.

This is the good news about these elections in the Western Balkan country: With new technology being used for the first time, voter fraud could be ruled out. The bad news is that the nationalists have expanded their power.

The three-member State Presidium, the state parliament and the parliaments of the two entities, the Serbian state (Republika Srpska, RS) and the Croatian-Muslim Federation were up for election on Sunday. In addition, the presidential office in the RS and the cantonal parliaments in the federation were voted on. Voter turnout was 42 percent, a historic low.

The ethno-nationalist parties in particular benefited from this, as they were able to mobilize their supporters to a much greater extent. In contrast, large sections of the young urban intelligentsia largely stayed away from the ballot box. Many young people tend to leave the country anyway.

In the state presidency, the pro-Western politician Denis Bećirović was able to maintain the contested seat of the Muslim-Bosniak population against Bakir Izetbegović. The Croatian nationalist Darijana Filipović from the right-wing HDZ BiH party was newly elected to the state presidency; she received 48.2 percent of the vote.

In future, Željka Cvijanović from the Serbian nationalist party SNSD (the camp of the former RS ​​president and nationalist hardliner Milorad Dodik) will sit on the presidium for the Serbs. She received 55.6 of the votes. This means that two nationalists are now facing off against a multinational-minded social democrat.

According to preliminary results, the Muslim nationalist SDA dominates the state parliament. Dodik's SNSD party - still one of the most influential voices in the RS - the social democrats SDP and the Croatian nationalists HDZ complete the political stage in parliament. But no party has a majority, and the shift to the right makes compromises even more difficult.

The SDA also remains the strongest force in the parliament of the Bosniak-Croatian Federation, while the SDP and other pro-European parties together form a countervailing force. The Dodik party clearly dominates the RS parliament. She also wins the post of president of the republic, but is dependent on coalition partners. But Dodik doesn't object to that. “I declare that we have won,” he told supporters in Banja Luka on Sunday. He thanked US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Voters have confirmed the ethnic party structure, or in other words: the system continues to produce three political spaces with very different interests. Serbian nationalism is pro-Russian, strongly separatist, strives for a separation of Republika Srpska from the state as a whole and maintains close contacts with Belgrade and Moscow.

Croatian Nationalism (HDZ BiH) has called for far-reaching electoral reform and greater institutional autonomy for Croats. With Darijana Filipović winning the presidential seat, this camp has achieved one of its goals. It remains to be seen whether the Croats will now continue to act together with the Serbs against the liberal and multinational forces. After all, Croatia has been a member of the EU since 2013. Bosniak Nationalism (SDA) represents a conservative Islamic course and calls for a more centralized overall state.

The democratic-liberal and multi-ethnic-bourgeois camp has suffered a noticeable setback, but remains an important factor. *Social Democrats and Liberals (SDP BiH, Naša stranka, Democratic Front) are national and multi-ethnic oriented. They are striving for rapid admission to the EU and NATO. However, due to the majority in the parliaments, it will be extremely difficult for this camp to form stable coalitions without the national parties.