Weekly Briefing, Vol. 35, No. 1 (BH), December 2020
BiH in 2020: Governing under COVID-19
As in the rest of the region and most of the world, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s politics in 2020 was heavily influenced by the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. However, the coronavirus and the subsequent COVID-19 disease only slightly influenced the usual, circular and very much expected turn of events which tirelessly fuel Bosnia and Herzegovina’s politics. When we look at the whole year, we can see that the celebrations of controversial partly-national holidays, struggle over Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitution and judicial system, hyping up the religious and ethnic differences, political manipulations of historical events, continuation of the rigid political agendas, and misuse of selective memory in public, along with the expected political affairs regarding misuse of public funds, were all present underneath the surface of the coronavirus pandemics. The only positive outcome of the pandemics, the somewhat unified and firm stance toward the spread of the disease, shown in the initial months of the pandemics on the level of the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina, unfortunately ended up being short lived. As soon as Bosnia and Herzegovina leaders adjusted to the new circumstances, the usual political altercations continued in form adjusted to the disease.
As it was the case in previous years, the 2020 began much as it was expected. The controversial and unconstitutional celebrations of the Republika Srpska Day on January 9th, organized by the leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (Savez nezavisnih socijaldemokrata, SNSD) Milorad Dodik in Banja Luka, stirred up a lot of attention domestically and internationally. This public deliberate defiance to the rulings of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Court was yet another demonstration of of just how easy is for Republika Srpska to do as it please, and how strong are the demands for actual independence of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the background of this demonstration, Bosnia and Herzegovina was undergoing a certain constitutional crisis, which revolved around the question of rights of ownership over the public agricultural lands. The issue occurred after the National Assembly of Republika Srpska unilateral decided that such lands belong to entities, thus making a claim to all public agricultural land in Republika Srpska. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in turn proclaimed this decision unconstitutional, claiming that the agricultural lands in public domain can only belong to the state itself. As expected, the reaction from Republika Srpska’s leading politicians was harsh, with Dodik taking the lead. On one hand, in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska’s (RS) February 17th session, Dodik pompously proclaimed the end of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) by stating “Goodbye BiH, welcome RS exit,” while on the other he reached for the well proven political tool in Bosnia and Herzegovina – boycott of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political institutions, which once again rendered the state dysfunctional on many levels. The pre-coronavirus period ended with yet another, but also predictable event, the celebration of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence (March 1st), which for Republika Srpska’a represents a painful reminder of traumatic days for Serbs who have in 1992 lost a common state.
The emergence of the coronavirus in Bosnia and Herzegovina on March 5th, although not instantly, changed the focus of politicians for a short while. March and April showed that entire Bosnia and Herzegovina, when it comes to non-political outside threat, does have the capability to act as a unified state. At least until all get acquainted to the new situation. Most of the restrictions were implemented at the end of March and beginning of April and lasted in full until the end of April and beginning of May, when the officials concluded that the containment of the disease reached high enough level and that country cannot afford to continue with the full lockdown. In this period, new hospitals were promptly set up, and the country on the state and entity levels began stacking supplies and spreading infrastructure for fighting with the disease in the future. The first wave of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease helped to resolve the previously mentioned constitutional crisis. On May 14th, after a close call voting, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled against Dodik’s request for the revision of Dayton Accords, which stipulate that foreign judges always have to be a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Court. Dodik’s idea to fill the Constitutional Court judge positions only with citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would no double open possibilities for further revisions of the constitution, was rejected. Another positive step forward for Bosnia and Herzegovina also happened in May. On May 7th, the European Commission announced that Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with Ethiopia, Guyana, Laos, Sri Lanka and Tunisia, was removed from the list of high-risk countries in terms of money laundering and terrorist financing.
However, the unity and focus on fighting against the coronavirus did not last long. Several affairs in mismanagement and embezzlement of millions of euros of public funds secured for purchase of equipment much needed for struggle against the COVID-19, in both Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, showed once more that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 101st place out of 180 on a Transparency International’s annual global corruption list is well earned. These reminders showed that not much is changing in this country were further supported once politics tuned in on memorials of two grim historic events, again with various types of predictable manipulations. The remembrance Bleiburg repatriations in May, was thus this year for the first time marked by a requiem mass in the Sarajevo Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, while the Srebrenica genocide, remembered in July, is further being pushed into state of relativization and even oblivion.
The last quarter of the 2020, was marked by the preparation for local (municipal) election, under the difficult task of managing of the reemergence of the COVID-19 pandemics, which from September spread through entire Bosnia and Herzegovina, making each month’s numbers of diseased and deceased significantly higher than the previous one. Besides the construction work on public infrastructure, ceremonial cutting of the ribbons on hastily finished projects, and numerous billboards wearing faces of politicians who are making promises they most likely will not be able to keep, many of the recurring irregularities were once again noted during the period of campaigning and “preparations” for the upcoming elections, showing that democracy practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina still has a lot of room for improvement. Reports from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina showed that during the few months that preceded the elections there were between 30 and 50 % more spending from the budget secured for public procurements, public funds were on occasion used for funding projects which were already finished for previous elections, the donations from large companies to political parties, which after the elections return the favor with lucrative contracts, are almost impossible to track, practices of illegal transfer of the voting names to foreign countries (mostly Serbia), the fact that the deceased people can still vote, etc. In combination to frequent episodes of political lockdowns, constant “affairs” of various nature, multitude of examples of embezzlement or mismanagement of public funds, etc., these practices played its role in further lowering the already low confidence the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have for local and state institutions and the politicians who represent them. Still, the 7th local (municipal) elections were successfully held on November 15th for the most part. Although for most of the electoral units the results itself showed little change regarding the past elections, leaving the same political forces in power, potentially significant shifts did occur. The most interesting changes occurred in the cities of Banja Luka and Sarajevo, where parties of Dodik and Bakir Izetbegović (Party of Democratic Action; Stranka Demokratske Akcije; SDA), respectively, failed to win overall majority or secure governors and majors, which will no doubt create new frictions in the near future of Bosnia and Herzegovina politics.
Conclusion
When it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is more or less safe to say that the year 2020 failed to bring anything significantly new or positive. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemics did change some of the variables, but the general equation remained the same for the most part. The struggle between the entities, ethnicities and the political forces that are born from them, as well as the attempts to politically outmaneuver each other, remained more or less the same throughout the year. Perhaps the only true difference, if we would compare this year with those that came before, which occurred due to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus changing the focus for a while, was the (temporary) slowing down of some more volatile ideas of political solutions for Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as the attempts to change certain parts of the Dayton Accords, the further advances toward independency of Republika Srpska or the elevation of the political status of several cantons in Herzegovina. Just how much danger exist in such ideas was demonstrated by the last local (municipal) election, which showed that voting in Bosnia and Herzegovina is based almost exclusively on ethnicity, and very little, if at all, on ethnically neutral political programs based on ideas of progress.