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Bosnia and Herzegovina: for Aline Cateux, voters sent a strong signal

A voter at a polling station in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sunday, October 2, 2022. AP - Armin Durgut

Text by: Romain Lemaresquier Follow

4 mins

The results of the elections held on Sunday October 2 for the new collegiate presidency in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the deputies and the members of the regional and local assemblies, somewhat change the balance of power in this small Balkan country, plagued by instability. chronicle for several decades now.

Interview with Aline Cateux, doctoral student in social anthropology, member of the laboratory of prospective anthropology at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve and correspondent in the Balkans for the Belgian daily newspaper

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This Sunday's multiple elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the central level and in the country's two entities, the Republic of Bosnian Serbs and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, divided along ethnic lines, have produced results that could worsen its instability, according to

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Aline Cateux:

It is certainly a very important moment in the political life of the post-war country, since it is first of all the first time that the Bosnian member of the tripartite presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina , escapes the nationalist party, the SDA (Democratic Action Party), and that it is a social democrat who wins.

It is also the first time that two members of the presidency come from the social democratic ranks and not from the nationalist ranks.

So it's a strong signal from the Bosnians, at least at the level of the presidency, that they want a change.

Željka Cvijanović, from the party of Milorad Dodik, was elected as a member from the Serbian community to the tripartite presidency.

Now, with regard to Milorad Dodik's lead over Jelena Trivić, in the Serbian Republic, we will have to wait for the steps taken, in particular by Jelena Trivić's party, which are contesting the ballot since a certain number of very serious irregularities have been noted in the Republic of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the vote did not take place in a completely calm manner.

So: it's a strong signal, but the presidency remains symbolic.

The presidents in Bosnia and Herzegovina simply have functions at the level of the ministries of foreign affairs.

What is interesting is to see that there, for the moment, in the Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the nationalists retain an absolute majority.

We know that for years, the situation in this country has been presented as very fragile.

Can these results be a game-changer

So what will aggravate the country's fragility is above all the promulgation, using the powers of Bonn of the High International Representative Christian Schmidt yesterday, since he imposed the electoral reform which was wanted by the Croatian nationalists and for which the Croatian state has stepped up to the plate in recent months.

This is above all what risks weakening the small achievements of this Sunday's election, since, as I was saying, the voters of Bosnia and Herzegovina have shown their fed up with the ruling class, they have expressed it to the through the ballot for the presidency.

And when this evolution in the Bosnian votes finally arrives, the high representative of the international community promulgates an electoral reform which is discriminatory and which goes in the direction of an ethnicization of the vote, which will pull the grass under the feet of the non-nationalist parties and which will certainly weaken their ability to act, since this law intervenes in particular on the way in which the members of the upper house of Parliament are appointed.

So, me, I would say that it is rather that the disaster of the ballot and the weakening of the results of these elections.

In your opinion, can we expect Bosnians to continue fleeing their country?

We know that nearly half a million people have left the country since the last census in 2013…

We have to wait to see what will happen at the local level.

The cantons – I speak for the Federation, because in the Republic of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I don't think the results indicate that there will be a slowdown in departures – it will really depend on the electoral results within them.

Cantons which are extremely powerful and which have autonomy in terms of managing their budget, political decisions on education, employment, health, etc., if there is not a strong signal at the local level of an electoral change, no, I do not think that the departures will slow down.

For the moment, there is nothing to indicate that there would be anything to slow them down, in any case.

►To learn more: All our articles on Bosnia and Herzegovina

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• Bosnia and Herzegovina