Translated material
"The hand out policy"
Bosnian Muslims took a step towards the Serbs
The final results of Sunday's general elections could be announced today in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Voters, as before, voted mainly according to national preferences. In the Bosnian Muslim camp, 54-year-old Bakir Izetbegovic (pictured), considered a moderate, caused a sensation by defeating 65-year-old nationalist Haris Silajdzic. Meanwhile, the charismatic leader of the Bosnian Serbs, 51-year-old Milorad Dodik, strengthened his position by convincingly winning the race for the presidency in the Bosnian Republika Srpska.All this foreshadows difficult negotiations over the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Voting in his hometown of Laktashi, Mr. Dodik said the parties “will either be able to reach a compromise and some balance” or “disperse peacefully, living next door and developing civilized relations.” In an interview with local Serbian television after his victory, he bluntly declared: “We are not interested in strengthening Bosnia.”
Currently, the administrative and state structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina is determined by the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995. It consists of two equal entities - the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska - with their own parliaments and governments. Decisions on national issues are made by a collective presidium consisting of three representatives of the state-forming peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Muslims, Serbs and Croats. Each of them has the right of veto.
It was for seats on the collective presidium that the main fight unfolded in Sunday's elections. Croat representative Zeljko Komsic was re-elected more confidently than others - thanks, among other things, to Muslim votes. Traditionally, representatives of all three nations vote for their own candidates and parties, so Mr. Komsic is a rare exception. Many Bosnian Croats consider him a traitor because during the inter-ethnic civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina of 1992-1995, he fought not in the ranks of Croat forces, but as part of the government Bosnian army, obeying the orders of Muslim military leaders. During the current campaign, a number of Croatian parties demanded that Zeljko Komsic withdraw his candidacy because he “has no moral right” to represent Croats, but this did not prevent him from being re-elected with 60% of the votes.
Serb Nebojsa Radmanovic retained his seat on the presidium. In the current elections, he was opposed by the moderate Mladen Ivanic, who is more acceptable to the West, but in the end he lost to the winner, who received about 50% of the votes. Radmanovic is considered a close ally of Milorad Dodik, and therefore his victory is unlikely to please the Western curators of the Bosnian settlement, represented by the United States and the EU. The latter have been trying to convince Bosnian politicians to change constitutional principles in favor of greater centralization since October 2009. Washington and Brussels are particularly unhappy with the existence of the veto. Their main opponents are supporters of Milorad Dodik from the Union of Independent Social Democrats. They accuse the West of seeking to liquidate the Republika Srpska itself, reducing it to a few powerless municipalities.
“The Dayton model of resolving interethnic conflicts has recently been deliberately destroyed by its own authors, who forget that only the creation of a careful balance of checks and balances made it possible to put an end to the fratricidal war in which more than 100 thousand people died,” he noted in an interview with Vremya Novostey. Director of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Nikiforov. “At the same time, the United States and the EU are trying to centralize Bosnia and Herzegovina precisely at the expense of the Serbs, so that the Serbian veto does not prevent the Sarajevo authorities from recognizing Kosovo and quickly promoting the country into the European Union and NATO.” Milorad Dodik, who won the race for the post of President of the Republika Srpska, is categorically against Bosnia and Herzegovina joining NATO; he advocates closer cooperation with Russia, in particular within the framework of the joint implementation of the South Stream gas pipeline project.
The most significant changes occurred in the Bosnian Muslim camp. Their long-time representative on the Presidium, Haris Silajdzic, lost by 10% to Bakir Izetbegovic, the son of Bosnia and Herzegovina's wartime leader, the late Alija Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic Jr. never tires of repeating that he is ready for compromises with Dodik in order to “leave the time of conflict behind.” He has already promised to pursue, as a member of the presidium, “a real policy of lending a hand and cooperation.”
However, in the camp of Bosnian Muslims there are enough influential figures who repeat, following the loser Silajdzic, that the Republika Srpska “is a product of anti-Muslim “ethnic cleansing.” In addition, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 58-year-old Mustafa Ceric, has unquestioned authority in the Muslim community. “Ceric’s influence is such that he can force Muslims to make any decision,” Milorad Dodik once ironically remarked in a conversation with the author of these lines. “If tomorrow he says, let’s elect Radovan Karadzic as president (the ex-leader of the Bosnian Serbs is accused by the Hague Tribunal of committing war crimes against Muslims - Ed. ), he will be elected unanimously.” A year ago, Ceric called for the inclusion of Sharia law in the Bosnian constitution, since he considers Bosnia and Herzegovina a “Muslim fatherland.” His statement addressed to Turkey, which he called “our mother”, also received wide resonance: “It has always been so, and it will remain so.”
“Mustafa Cerich is indeed a very influential figure in Bosnia and Herzegovina, unacceptable to the Serbs,” confirmed Konstantin Nikiforov in an interview with VN. -- While visiting the historical region of Sandzak in Serbia, at the junction of the borders with Bosnia and Montenegro, in 2009, he told the local Muslim community that “no force will keep the local Muslims from uniting with the Bosnian ones.” The Bosnian Serbs' opposition to plans for the centralization of Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely due to their reluctance to one day wake up in a Sharia state."