Events in Ukraine and mobilization in Russia continue to dominate our attention, but there is one political news item that cannot be ignored. Elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and the results, as well as the structure of Bosnian politics, are instructive for post-Soviet Muslims, especially those living in ethnically diverse regions.
To recapitulate, BiH is a confederation in which, within the two-component state union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is the Republika Srpska and another federation — the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which consists of Muslim (Bosniak) and Croat cantons (regions). In addition to its parliament, BiH as a whole also has three presidents representing the Bosniak, Croat, and Serb peoples. And both the Republika Srpska and the Federation of BiH have their own parliaments and leaders.
Historically, the main Muslim force in the country is the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), founded by the legendary Alija Izetbegovic and led by his son, Bakir Izetbegovic. It has to fight on two fronts. The first is external enemies in the form of Serb and Croat chauvinists who are trying to divide BiH and subjugate it to the will of Serbia and Croatia. The second are internal enemies among the Bosniaks, who generally do not like the «too Muslim», «Islamist» course of the SDA, considering that it is oriented towards Erdogan’s AKP, and Alija Izetbegovic was considered an Ikhwani. Moreover, attention should be paid to the grievances of a part of the disillusioned Muslim electorate against the SDA regarding corruption, protectionism, etc., as no Muslim alternative has emerged.
Recently, elections were held for the three presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as for parliaments at all levels — federal, republican, and cantonal. In the parliamentary elections in BiH, the Federation and the cantons, the SDA improved its positions and achieved the best results in the last 20 years. It has 30% in the BiH Parliament, 43% in the BiH Federation Parliament and the majority in the last five cantons.
But the most interesting thing is that while the Muslim SDA lost the presidential elections among its own Bosniak people, it managed to win the presidential elections among the Catholic and Croat people. Yes, it is true, because it is no secret that for the second time in a row the Bosniak candidate Zeljko Komsic wins thanks to the fact that some Bosniaks take the ballots with Croat candidates and vote for him. Incidentally, this may have prevented the victory of the Bosniak candidate Bakir Izetbegovic in the presidential election, since his supporters voted mostly for Komsic.
An uninformed reader of Bosnian politics might wonder why Bosniaks and SDA supporters would engage in such manipulation. The reason is that the dominant force among Croat voters is the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), a Croat chauvinist party that essentially supports the partition of BiH in alliance with Serb chauvinists. The latter firmly control the Republika Srpska, from which almost all Muslims were once expelled and where they still either cannot return or cannot register as voters. On the other hand, Bosniaks and Croats live intermingled in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the Bosniaks being numerically dominant, much to the chagrin of Croatian chauvinists who want their own ethnically based state. Considering that the neighboring countries have their own countries, unlike the Bosniaks, who have no other country. Therefore, after the HDZ refused to compromise with the Bosniaks and pursued a course of dividing the country, including using the position of the president of the Croat people, the Muslim and pro-Bosnian patriotic forces had no choice but to deprive them of this position. For this reason, twice in a row, the SDA redirected some of its voters to vote with Croat ballots instead of Bosniak ballots, which is why the HDZ and the Croat authorities demanded changes in the election law to make this impossible, and the Muslims opposed it. As a result, out of three important positions, the SDA has kept and even strengthened two (the parliamentary majority and the presidency of the Croat people) and lost one (the presidency of its own Muslim people). And in this configuration they and other Bosniak patriots will now have to fight against their enemies.
But what else is interesting about this story? In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are only 3.2 million people living in an area of 51,197 square kilometers. In Dagestan, for example, there are 3.15 million people living in an area of 50,300 square kilometers. That is, they have approximately the same parameters, although there are some slight differences. In Dagestan, there are more ethnic groups than in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the overwhelming majority of them identify themselves as Muslims, although there are more religious and secular people, as well as followers of different Islamic directions. On the one hand, however, we see a complex, multi-level political system in which the interests of all groups living in the country are identified and coordinated, and Muslims have learned to navigate it quite well. On the other hand, we have a colonial system ruled by the boot that openly curses its indigenous subordinates. So the next time chauvinists talk about how small Dagestan with its many ethnic groups can’t survive without Moscow as an arbiter, ask yourself — what makes it worse than Bosnia and Herzegovina, and why can’t it have a similar system that takes into account the interests of all the peoples and social groups living in it?