IDPI (Institute for Social and Political Research) has developed basic principles to guide the electoral reform process in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH). These principles were formulated in line with the requirements of the Dayton Accords and the rulings of the Constitutional Court. We welcome our international friends of Bosnia &
Analysis
After US-based Institute for Stabilization and Transition (IST) published analysis titled “Bosnia and Herzegovina: Failed State in the Heart of Europe”on October 17, 2017, instead of substantiated public and academic discussion of IST’s analysis on the currents state of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and policy recommendations, what followed was inappropriately
Jasmin Mujanovic’s article Russia’s Bosnia Gambit: Intrigue in the Balkans appeared on September 6th 2017 on the Foreign Affairs website. It contains numerous web links, probably supposed to serve as references that confirm his “hypotheses.” However, Mujanovic’s references are extremely biased, and his attempt to present the article as a snapshot is the
Theory of dediscoursification and implementation of Dayton peace as continuation of the state of war
Izetbegović’s discourse is filled with the examples of violation of all key values of moral-discursive matrix of language: for instance, we find many contradictory statements concerning essential issues and aspects of BiH politics; the statement on civil, ethnically unmarked BiH in parallel with the statement on BiH-Moslems as a foundational, and even majority, people to BiH who can claim some special rights over the state; or the expression of the wish to accept the condition of war with the aim of defending Bosnia’s full sovereignty in the sense of an undivided rule; but also the expression of readiness to arrange the relations within BiH in accordance with both Serb and Croat interests.
Such abuse of electoral outcomes was founded also on a ‘reform’ of the House of Peoples of the BiH Federation which, under the Washington agreement, is composed of Bosniak and Croat 30 member clubs that made decisions by a simple majority. The reforms added to the House both a Serb and a club of ‘others’, while the number of representatives per clubs was reduced to 17, and a simple majority decision making by individual clubs was reduced to 1/3 threshold. As 6 of 17 delegates to the Croat club are actually elected in the cantons with Bosniak majoriy, this has enabled Bosniaks to elect 6 „Croats of their own” and thereby gain supremacy within the Croat club.
In reflections offered here author advocate a thesis: for a number of clear and pertinent reasons, the acting of Bonn-powered HR is inherently damaging to Bosnia-Herzegovina as a state and also as an association both of entities and of peoples and citizens.
What is a problem with the election of Željko Komšić as a BiH Presidency member?
As Drazen Pehar explains, the election of Komšić stands in violation of the Dayton Constitution for Bosnia-Herzegovina, in particular of the preamble to the Constitution. Since the BiH Election Law currently in force sanctions the election, the law itself is unconstitutional. As a part of the explanation, Pehar offers a detailed argument in support of the theses that, first, in this part, the election law is actually an effect of a flawed and unpersuasive interpretation of the Dayton Constitution, and, secondly, that the logic of the Constitution plausibly interpreted supports the idea of ethnic electoral units.
Rise of the EU and German interest for the Balkans and Bosnia and Herzegovina got confirmed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal initiative on appointing the Balkans leaders’ meeting on 28th of August in Berlin. The meeting should be seen in the context of regional cooperation increase and strengthened European integration.
It is with amazement, perhaps even a shock, that one should register the amount of irresponsibility and incompetence with which some NGOs in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) approach some serious issues or tasks, such as analysis of a status of a constituent people, or peoples, within the context of the process of ‘implementing of Dayton peace frame for BiH,’ as the somewhat empty phrase has it. One of the best illustrations of such a sad condition can be found in a study recently published by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a German non-profit organization funded by the CDU, in cooperation with European Academy at Sarajevo.
This essay deals with an unfairly neglected document, the Dayton Agreement on Implementing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, signed at Dayton on November 10 1995. The first two parts of the essay reproduce the key provisions and the character of the agreement, and also the agreement’s key implications. The third part of the essay aims to problematize the process of implementation of the Dayton framework for peace in light of the agreement on implementing the Federation. Finally, the fourth part issues a number of recommendations at several levels as a part of an attempt to clarify the ways in which the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina could be amended.
