Dispute in Bosnia & Herzegovina
That’s behind Christian Schmidt’s outburst of anger
By Marko Orlovic
08/21/2022, 09:13 am
When a journalist asks a question, Christian Schmidt bursts at the seams. The outburst of anger by the CSU man who, as High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, oversees the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, caused irritation internationally. But his tone was chosen deliberately.
There is a nice saying in Bosnia and Herzegovina: “s kim si, takav si” – whoever you associate with, so are you. Apparently the country’s High Representative, Christian Schmidt, spent a lot of time with local politicians. “I hope to have shaken up the decision-makers in politics,” he defended his outburst of anger. A few days ago, his emotional appearance at a press conference became public beyond the borders of the Balkan country. “If things continue as before, the future of a country in the heart of Europe will be lost,” he says to ntv.
Bosnia and Herzegovina are “characterized by strong nationalist tendencies that are repeatedly used in a targeted manner by actors,” explains the former Federal Minister of Agriculture. “Politicians get tangled up in mutual blame instead of struggling for solutions.”
At the press conference on Wednesday in the eastern Bosnian city of Gorazde, the otherwise calm and level-headed-looking politician was visibly at a loss. “Rubbish, full rubbish!” (“Trash, big garbage”), Schmidt rumbled in front of the camera. “We are not here to play political games. […] I’m up to this point with these claims, which are completely false!”
His outburst was a question from the Bosnian reporter Adisa Imamovic from the TV channel N1. She wanted to know from Schmidt whether he would enforce the controversial right to vote before the October 2 elections due to his powers as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) and why he was only concerned with the concerns of the Croats.
Years of fighting over the right to vote
For years, the political representatives of the three constitutive ethnic groups (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats) have been arguing about a reform of the electoral law. First and foremost it is about the political balance in the Bosniak-Croatian Federation, which forms one of the two entities of the country alongside the Serb-majority Republic of Srpska.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina is a democratic state with two largely autonomous units (entities): Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS).
- Both parts have their own executive and legislature.
- There is also a joint government and a joint parliament for the state as a whole.
- The State Presidency is the collective head of state. It consists of one representative each from the Bosniak, Serb and Croat ethnic groups. The presidency rotates every eight months.
(Source: Federal Foreign Office, Wikipedia)
In the country’s constitution, which is enshrined in the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, all three ethnic groups are granted the same rights. However, changes in previous High Representatives have shifted the balance in the federation in favor of the more populous Bosniaks.
“Previous reforms made it possible for the Bosniaks, who outnumbered them, to impose their political representatives on the Croats at all levels of government,” explains historian Domagoj Knezevic. An example of this is the controversial politician Zeljko Komsic. The president of the Democratska Fronta party, which was declared to be conservative, was elected four times as the Croatian representative to the three-member state presidency, with a majority of Bosniak votes. Despite his twelve-year reign, a clear majority of Croats continue to reject him as a legitimate representative.
“While the Bosniaks, as the largest ethnic group, want to use this political advantage and assert their national interests in the form of a bourgeois concept, the Croats, as the smallest group, are demanding that the rights of the constitutive peoples be guaranteed and that Euro-Atlantic integration be promoted,” he explains Professor at the Croatian Institute of History.
Christian Schmidt fights “political criminals”
In his capacity as High Representative, who oversees the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement for the international community, Schmidt had repeatedly called on the decision-makers to reach a bilateral agreement. A serious attempt failed last January in the coastal town of Neum: representatives of the EU and the USA had invited the two sides to talks. The Bosniaks, led by the largest party SDA, rejected all reform proposals from the Croatian parties, which had formed a coalition. This deepened the mutual distrust and hardened the fronts.
“Any change means a loss of power for Bosnian politicians of all colors,” explains Josip Juratovic, SPD member of the Bundestag and Western Balkans expert. “Political criminals rule Bosnia and Herzegovina, who control almost all parties and large parts of the media – and Christian Schmidt threatens to bring them down.”
Call for protests and violence
It was late July when an alleged draft by Schmidt on electoral reform for the vote on the composition of parliament in October leaked out. It provided for a percentage hurdle in the ten cantons of the federation to enable the election of legitimate representatives of the ethnic groups.
The report unleashed a storm of indignation: Bosniak nationalists and bourgeois parties called for protests and, in some cases, for violence. They feared that Schmidt could force the reform of the electoral law by decree, which he had the power to do by virtue of his office. Several thousand people gathered in front of his office in Sarajevo on July 25.
Two days later, Schmidt announced a change in electoral law, but this was only of a technical nature. He gave the political representatives a six-week deadline to reform the electoral law.
“I am convinced that Schmidt will not give up so easily, because after all he has the vast majority of the population behind him,” says SPD politician Juratovic. “We mustn’t be fooled by the politically organized rallies, he knows that very well.”
Many forces are pulling at Christian Schmidt
“Frustration is high on all sides,” explains Peter Beyer, the Union’s rapporteur for the Western Balkans. He can understand Schmidt’s displeasure very well. He works in a country “where the individual interests of top political actors are placed above those of the country, political blockades are part of everyday life and elected politicians don’t do their jobs.”
Beyer therefore welcomes the “undiplomatic mode of expression” and evaluates Schmidt’s “wake up” as correct. “The past has taught us that diplomatic language, especially in the Western Balkans, doesn’t always get us anywhere,” explains the CDU politician. There was a lot of encouragement for his appearance within the Union because “the focus is again on Bosnia and Herzegovina”.