Confusion after contradictory claims by Serbian leaders
Confusion reigned early Monday in Bosnia where two rival Serbian leaders claimed a crucial victory in a complex ballot that should aggravate the country’s fragility.
Milorad Dodik’s sworn enemy, Jelena Trivic, has declared victory in the race for the presidency of Republika Srspka, the Serbian entity in the fractured country.
AFP
Sunday’s multiple elections have resulted in setbacks, landslide victories and a surprise move by the international High Representative that could add further instability to the small, impoverished country divided along ethnic lines.
The Electoral Commission was continuing its vote count late into the night but Milorad Dodik’s sworn enemy, Jelena Trivic, declared victory in the race for the presidency of Republika Srspka, the Serbian entity in the fractured country, after leading campaign by promising to eradicate corruption while playing a nationalist score. “It’s the victory of the people,” she said before taking to the streets of Banja Luka, the capital of the RS, to celebrate it. “This must not represent my personal victory but rather an RS victory”.
Milorad Dodik, who is aiming for a third term as president of the RS, rejected the claim of his rival, an academic professor of economics, while saying he wanted to “wait for the full results”. “As far as I’m concerned, I won but we are waiting. I expect a difference of 40,000 votes in my favour,” he said, accusing the camp opposite of lacking “seriousness”.
Bosnia is governed under a dysfunctional system inherited from the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the inter-community war in 1995. The country is divided between Republika Srpska and a Croat-Muslim federation, linked by a weak central power often paralyzed. Nearly three decades after the conflict that claimed 10,000 lives, the main parties have exploited ethnic divisions to hold on to power.
Exodus
At the same time, all those who can choose exile in the face of the absence of both political and economic prospects. Nearly 500,000 people have left the country since the last census in 2013, when it had 3.5 million inhabitants, according to estimates by the Union for a Sustainable Return, a local NGO.
Milorad Dodik, the outgoing Serbian representative of the collegial presidency, has multiplied secessionist threats in recent months, which have earned him sanctions from Washington and London, while repeatedly repeating that Bosnia was a “failed” country.
On the other hand, Zeljka Cvijanovic, a 55-year-old lawyer and member of Milorad Dodik’s SNSD, to whom she is very close, will succeed her in the Serbian chair of the country’s tripartite presidency.
The turmoil in RS is not the only surprise of the election. In the Muslim community, Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the nationalist SDA who has dominated political life for decades and son of the first president of independent Bosnia, suffered a crushing defeat. He was running for the Muslim chair in the tripartite presidency against a candidate supported by eleven opposition parties.
Denis Becirovic, a 46-year-old social-democratic history professor who campaigns for a “pro-European and united” Bosnia, obtained closer to 56% of the vote against 39% for his opponent, according to the preliminary results of the commission. electoral. He called on everyone “to unite for the future. We no longer have the time or the right to waste our energy on useless disputes”.
New disruptions in sight
On the Croatian side, the landslide victory of Zeljko Komsic, who obtains his fourth mandate as collegial presidency, could also cause new disturbances. Flag bearer of a “citizen” Bosnia, he is appreciated by Muslims but hated by a large part of the Croats who deny him any legitimacy to represent this community.
On the Croatian side, the landslide victory of Zeljko Komsic, who obtains his fourth mandate as collegial presidency, could also cause new disturbances.
AFP
For months, the Croatian parties, the conservative HDZ in the lead, have been calling for a modification of the electoral rules, which allow the Bosnians, who are a large majority demographically within the common entity, to de facto elect the Croatian member to the collegiate presidency. Threats of blockages in support, they also demand new mechanisms to choose their representatives in the upper house of the federation, which the Bosnians refuse.
Just after the polls closed, the International High Representative Christian Schmidt announced reforms in the Croatian-Muslim entity where no government could be appointed after the last elections in 2018 due to disagreements between the two communities. .
“These measures are aimed at improving the functionality of (the entity) and ensuring the prompt implementation of the election results,” said the High Representative, who has significant discretionary powers in Bosnia, in a statement.
AFP
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