American "Foreign Affairs": BiH, unfortunately, remains status quo!

Bosnians and Herzegovinians have many reasons to seek change, but unfortunately, the status quo is more likely to prevail, writes the reputable American magazine "Foreign Affairs", published by the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential non-governmental organization based in New York, reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

The author of the article, Milada Vachudova, explains the complexity of the situation in BiH after Dayton in a comprehensive text, but claims that change in this manner will be difficult to achieve and lists three reasons for this.

- First and foremost, demonstrators in the Federation do not support any alternative political party. As things stand, they cannot remove the government, because there is no one left to vote for. Political parties, not civil initiatives, go to elections and form governments. In a democracy, civil movements are always managed from the shadows by political parties. If BiH wants change, it needs either new parties or changes within the old ones. Political parties control a large number of jobs, and therefore voters themselves vote for the status quo - the text states.

Also, secondly, the author points out, any substantial change to Dayton is impossible without respecting the ethnic principle. The main interests of the vast majority in BiH are still based on ethnic identity.

The third reason is the fact that BiH leaders have outmaneuvered the European Union, because European reforms are essentially always led by the authorities and elites. However, the EU has failed to force BiH political leaders to cooperate.

- The EU has a long tradition of using European enlargement as a mechanism to pressure countries in the integration process. But, this only works when political leaders feel that meeting these conditions brings them victory in elections, which is unfortunately not the case in BiH. Moreover, the Sejdić-Finci case is a good excuse for politicians, given that not even a part of European countries respects all the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights - the text states.