A vote for the politics of a civic state is salvation for Bosnia and Herzegovina, otherwise we are on the path of Čović and Dodik!

Written by: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

In recent months, and especially days, it is hard to shake the impression that history is repeating itself. The citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, primarily Bosniaks, are not hearing threats of isolation and disappearance for the first time, as the criminal Radovan Karadžić once threatened, and today Milorad Dodik continues with calls for some kind of independence of the Republika Srpska.

As early as 1991, in decisive historical circumstances, the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina largely entrusted their political fate to ethno-national parties. These political structures, born from a wave of national homogenization and fear, shaped a political system that still dominates the public space today. Three decades later, the same patterns of governance continue to determine the country's political dynamics.

To be fair, it is important to emphasize that today there is a huge number of citizens who do not support such a model. Their stance is most often manifested by not voting, a kind of silent protest against a system where political loyalty is often based on ethnic affiliation, rather than on programs, accountability, and results.

Unfortunately, these citizens have chosen political abstinence instead of fighting for a state and society whose regulations give everyone an equal right to vote and be elected, i.e., a state where the rule of law is taken for granted, not ethnicized for daily political needs.

The political project Trojka has further confused citizens, because in this political bloc, the lead is taken by the SDP, a party that has long not acted in accordance with its statute! In the end, the SNSD also came to power on the wings of a story about social democracy, encouraged by America, and today it is a promoter of the pure SDS policy from the 1990s.

All this leads to a situation where abstainers are not necessarily politically uninterested. On the contrary, among them is a significant number of those who want a civic organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a state of equal rights for all, without privileges and discrimination based on ethnicity, but they no longer know to whom their trust would bring results.

Their problem is not a lack of political awareness, but the served narrative that the alternative offer to ethno-nationalism is dangerous and unreasonable, which again plays into the hands of those working on the dismantling of the state.

To be clear, the articulation of a clear, consistent, and brave civic option, with support for candidates like Slaven Kovačević, could represent a political step forward.

The election of Željko Komšić as a paradigm of such politics did not cause problems, as the HDZ often likes to point out, as Dragan Čović also talks about, and which was accepted by the so-called pro-Bosnian parties NIP, SDP, and Naša stranka, stating that it is 'not fair' for others to choose their representatives.

And, the only thing that is 'not fair' is that we are led by people who do not see that without Komšić, the path to the final reorganization of BiH would be easier and more passable.

Therefore, the key question of the upcoming elections in October will not only be who has the strongest party infrastructure, but who can awaken the trust that a civic state is a matter of survival, not just political organization.

The way out of the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina lies not only in a change of government, but in a change of political paradigm. If the civic bloc is strengthened with a convincing vision of a functional, legal, and socially responsible state, then the next elections could be more than a routine change of government, and could be the beginning of redefining the political future of the country, which is more than necessary, as evidenced by the rulings from Strasbourg.

Everything else leads Bosnia and Herzegovina in the direction of the narratives and policies orchestrated by Dodik and Čović.