Bandić: New Government and Old Empty Promises

By Muamer Bandić for NAP

The Sarajevo Canton today got a new Government. It will be led by the old/new Prime Minister Nihad Uk. That Government will be run by a bloc of interests, formed by political corruption and the sale of public institutions for the employment of relatives and friends of the new parliamentary majority actors.

Like every government before it, this one will be accompanied by optimistic announcements with "it should be" and "we will" or "we want," with many nice words, but without any concrete content and structured roadmap of specific actions.

Since we were part of the previous Government, I know from experience that what the Trojka says and what the Trojka does have never met, not even on the road. What we at least tried to do was to return the work of institutions within legal frameworks and procedures, and that is why we were an obstacle to the realization of many personal ambitions and a hindrance to feeding many hungry eyes.

Today we got a government that will no longer have these obstacles, and I believe it will have no regard for laws or procedures in satisfying personal interests. The Trojka in practice completely undermines the model of representative democracy, based on respect for the law and transparency in achieving the public interest of citizens, and subordinates the entire political system to the realization of the interests of a narrow group of party power brokers. All political processes they have led so far have either failed or have not met expectations.

In doing so, the interests of the public and the interests of citizens are completely neglected, forgotten because the process itself is solely aimed at strengthening the position of political parties that strengthen their party infrastructure through employment and repay debts to prominent members.

That is why all state institutions show helplessness in solving the daily problems of citizens because they are not designed to deal with them. Such a policy does not develop institutions to follow social dynamics and solve the problems faced by the citizens of Sarajevo.

And there are many such problems, from traffic and other infrastructure needed by the capital city of the country, through education, to cleanliness, waste collection, and disposal. Ultimately, we have a continuation of selling empty stories and deceiving citizens by the overly brave, overly honest, and overly honorable destroyers of the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the complete euthanasia of the rule of law.

Besides nice words and stories, citizens should not expect anything new or spectacular, and those who come after will find chaos and shoddy work left behind by pseudo-masters without any craft.

The Sarajevo Canton, today more than ever, needs a strong patriotic bloc as a counterbalance to dilettantish negligence. This is no longer a matter of values or political ideas, but literally a matter of our future.