The interview was conducted by Dražen Ciglenečki in Novi List.
- There have been speculations that, in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, conflicts could break out in BiH. Are these speculations nonsense or does it seem to you that this is not impossible?
To perceive them as nonsense would be to take a naive position in a context where the international order is changing dramatically, while on the other hand, paying too much attention to them would mean accepting the game of destabilizing the region and becoming its participant. For BiH, the optimal position would be that advocated by General Melchett in the Black Adder series: „Only resolute non-confrontation with reality can save us“.
In other words, to emphasize the threat of war means to create an atmosphere of fear in an already unstable state, therefore, before every word spoken that involves invoking conflict, public actors should really think about who benefits from such a narrative. One only has to follow the thread of its origin and the situation becomes much clearer.
- How did politics in BiH, that is, how did the policies in BiH, react to the war in Eastern Europe?
They reacted as usual, the same way they would react to the aggression on Papua New Guinea. Bosniak and Croat actors have taken an unequivocal stance in condemning the Russian invasion, and have shown significant solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Serb politicians are in a state of initial shock in which they are not coping in the best way. While they ritually express skepticism towards aggression and support Ukraine's territorial integrity, at the same time they do not support the sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU and the rest of the democratic world.
The current situation in which Russia has played with white figures and attachment to their patronage has lulled the Serb political elite. Their fundamental fear is that there will be a moment when real side choosing will be sought. Linking to the authoritarian, and now imperial, order is in the long run an elimination element in terms of European integration, and the alternative means Serb isolationism, currently politically and economically unfeasible.
- It is never the right time for war, but when it comes to BiH, the Russian aggression on Ukraine came at a very bad time, during the talks on the electoral legislation, in which the international community is involved. Are you afraid that, due to the complete focus of the world on the war in Ukraine, the international interest in the situation in BiH could completely subside?
Exactly the opposite. It is ugly to say, but it is simply so, the Russian invasion will become a catalyst for solving our internal problems, especially the electoral legislation. You have to admit that compared to the war in Ukraine, the issue of resolving the electoral legislation in BiH seems like a chamomile or a diplomatic exercise.
My view is that the international community, and especially the U.S. diplomats, will further focus on changes to the Election Law in order to relax relations in the Federation, to hold regular and fair elections, and thus significantly stabilize the situation throughout the country.
Resolving the problem of the Russian invasion, with a potentially enormous humanitarian crisis, and at the same time putting regular elections in question while the process of dissolving state institutions is under way in Republika Srpska, would be too much of a risk, even for the United States.
- Is it possible to reach an agreement without the mediation of international representatives, since they have not achieved too much?
Not at the moment. First of all, we must always keep in mind that the international community, especially through the institution of the High Representative, has unilaterally changed the constitutional framework and the Election Law without any democratic legitimacy or approval of BiH political parties and citizens. By doing so, they have fundamentally disrupted the constitutional balance agreed in Dayton and caused long-term consequences that we are still experiencing today.
In other words, the international community is the fourth constitutive subject in BiH, which in extraordinary circumstances takes on the role of a real sovereign. Their political and moral obligation is to mediate and offer proposals to address all the shortcomings of the electoral system.
- You have analyzed the political platforms of the main ethnic parties in BiH, do they provide hope for the establishment of a functioning state, especially when it comes to electoral legislation?
Unfortunately not, because they are incommensurable with each other. When you read the basic visions of BiH statehood from these documents, then three political vectors clearly appear. One is centripetal, which sees BiH as a unitary, civic state without an entity or cantonal structure and without the main constitutional principle of constituent peoples. The problem with this vision is that it is advocated by the SDA, the dominant Bosniak party which would de facto achieve its aspiration to create a Bosniak nation-state under the auspices of civicness.
The opposite is the centrifugal Serb vector. It seeks to further dissolve the central state and establish a confederate relationship between the entities, with a real possibility of subsequent secession. The problem with this vision is the possibility of the disintegration of the common state and the perception of the Republika Srpska as a de facto state.
The third vector levitating between the two previous ones is the federal, Croat. It is not strong enough to prevail in one direction or another, and for now it exists as a balancing model.
- You have defined the Croat position as between a hammer and an anvil, where you believe that the hammer is Serb separatism, and the anvil is a Bosniak formal commitment to a civic state. Why, in this sense, as you perceive it, are Serbs a hammer and Bosniaks an anvil?
It is just a plastic metaphor that is not necessarily like that, it can be reversed or completely ignored. With an important note, the Bosniak formal commitment to a civic state is the unitarization of the state and the creation of a national Bosniak state. There is no known case in modern political history that two modern nations have agreed to abolish their own constitutivity and assimilate into a majority national-civic identity.
The point is that the current demands of the Croat political parties expressed through the Croat National Assembly (Hrvatski narodni sabor – HNS), when you summarize them, are merely striving to reset the electoral principles to the basic Dayton settings.
In other words, they want to rebalance the political system with the possibility of democratic expression of the Croats' political will for those institutions that are intended for this type of representation - the BiH Presidency and the House of Peoples. In short, Croats do not want to be a cultural appendage to the nationalizing Bosniak state, but a political subject in a plurinational state.
- At the moment, Croats are in a certain alliance with the hammer, meaning Serbs. Do you consider this a logical choice in the current circumstances?
Whatever one may think about it, it is a symptom of the overall political situation in which Croat political representatives find themselves. I will illustrate this with a concrete example. The Central Election Commission (CEC) is the administrative body for the implementation and supervision of electoral cycles. It is also compiled according to a specific ethnic key.
The current composition of the commission is such that the Croat member was elected by the Bosniak ruling party (SDA) with the support of the Serb opposition (SDS and PDP). They elected a man who was the Head of Office of illegitimate Croat Presidency member Željko Komšić.
So, if you do not find a partner with those to whom you are referred, and those are Bosniak political representatives, then you must find them elsewhere because otherwise you do not exist as a political subject. If there was no political alliance between Banja Luka and Mostar, the election model as in CEC would not be an excess, but a rule.
- There are people in Croatia who think that the concept of a BiH civic state is the best solution, for example former President Stjepan Mesić. What is your position on this concept, is it completely missed or perhaps premature and therefore unrealistic today?
It is completely unclear why the SDA in the Republic of Croatia is conducting the „I am a Bosniak“ campaign in order to express themselves in as many numbers as possible, and thus get its own constituency, like the Serb minority. As this is not an „anti-civilization model“ for them in Croatia, why don't they stand for a „civic state“? Furthermore, why does the same party stand for the constitutivity of Bosniaks in Sandžak, Serbia? How come their constitutivity is not a Soviet model or apartheid? Also, why did SDA advocate for Bosniak constitutivity in Mostar at the level of local government, where Bosniaks are a demographic minority, but somehow they fiercely oppose it at FBiH and BiH level?
The pretense of a civic state is a read story of a hidden aspiration for Bosniak political hegemony. There are indeed people who do not recognize themselves in the dominant ethnic matrices and are admirers of honest civic politics and identity. However, they respect the reality of our society and mostly agree to a certain balance of collective and individual rights.
Is there a civic state anywhere on Earth without a civic society? It is out of the question to insist on a civic (unitary) state within a divided society, because in such a constellation it serves as a fig leaf of the majority, ethno-national politics. After all, civic society can only be created through transgressive processes, not through moral arrogance and the imposition of identity.
- What would Croats lose if BiH miraculously transforms into a civic state, which even Croatia is not?
They would simply be reduced to the level of a national minority. Unfortunately, we have recently seen what this means in areas where Croats are objectively in the minority, and thus on the political margins. For example, in Sarajevo, where the mayor congratulates „the calendar“ and not Christmas, and where a Kalashnikov is drawn on the door of a Catholic family. Or in Zenica and Bužim, where billboards with Christmas greetings were welcomed as a provocation and insult to the population.
Not to mention Bugojno, where at a session of the Municipal Council, a Croat MP is accused of not speaking Bosnian. Former reis ulema Mustafa Cerić „brilliantly“ detects how the Croats status would look like: „Bosnians were surrounded by Serbia and Croatia. And in Bosnia, they were surrounded by local Serbs and Croats“. So, Croats would be guests in their own homeland.
- The basic request of the BiH Croats is to elect their own representatives in government bodies. Is the fact that Željko Komšić is a Croat member of the Presidency the product of a Bosniak plan to elect with their votes the man who suits them best? If so, why did they allow Dragan Čović to be convincingly elected in office when Komšić could not run? Can this problem simply disappear when Komšić, for some reason dear to Bosniak voters, will no longer be able to be a candidate?
In that election cycle, they did not have their own „race horse“, and they knew they would not be able to control Martin Raguž in the way they do with Komšić. However, your question reflects the fundamental problem: „why did they allow...“. Should we even be in a position of anxiety every time Bosniak voters decide to vote for the Croat member of the Presidency.
Željko Komšić is not an essential problem, he is an insignificant and at the same time tragic character of our political scene. If BiH ever becomes a true plural and democratic society, he will be remembered as an example of an actor through whom the majority people manipulated the electoral process to the detriment of the least numerous people.
The point is that the electoral model should be such as to prevent the outvoting of an entire constitutive people and its democratic will. The outvoting creates a feeling of deep humiliation and turns the Croats away from state institutions, thus harming them in the long run. If there is so much „civic policy“ power within BiH, it might be fair for them to outvote Bosniaks once and impose their Presidency member on them.
- What are the chances that the influence of HDZ BiH among Croat voters will weaken in the near future?
The Croat political body in BiH can be pluralized only in the conditions of a fair electoral framework, in which it will not have to close ranks every time in order not to be overvoted, ie in order to really elect its representatives to the institutions intended for that purpose. Paradoxically, the tendencies of Bosniak hegemony within the Federation drive away pluralistic forces within the Croatian corps and thus make it easier for the HDZ to maintain its dominant position and the inviolable Croat party, because they constantly create an atmosphere of fear and impose elections as ethnic censuses.
Dnevnik.ba