Izetbegović and the 'Civic' Concept

By: A. Čorbo-Zećo

The Party of Democratic Action defends the civic principle, said Bakir Izetbegović, president of SDA. If it weren't funny, it would be tragic, or as our people would say, "Don't you defend me, for heaven's sake."

Actions speak much louder than words. And Izetbegović has accumulated many of them. Realizing that the embodiment of Bosniak politics is crime, corruption, a complete absence of any system, which Izetbegović has led for years, he has turned to the story of the civic option.

"We gave our word that we would try to resolve something that has been pending for 12 years. I don't see a way to achieve something between the desires of SDA and left-oriented civic parties and HDZ, which is constantly blocking us. We cannot negotiate under blackmail," said Izetbegović.

In fact, it is easiest to blackmail someone about whom you know everything. Dragan Čović knows a lot. The two of them have been partners for years. So close that Čović 'turned a blind eye' and allowed Izetbegović to bring DF and the much-disliked Željko Komšić into power with him. Later, he closed both eyes and acted as if Komšić was not part of the government.

Izetbegović behaved similarly. Komšić was there, he got positions, but the concept of forming a government from three national groups of political parties was actually in play.

DF is just one of the civic parties that won a quarter of the votes in BiH. And DF alone did not manage to introduce the civic concept into the BiH government. Primarily thanks to Izetbegović and SDA.

First, SDA deputies in the session of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska voted for four SNSD candidates, Nikola Špirić, Lazar Prodanović, Dušanka Majkić, and Sredoje Nović, to become delegates of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PS BiH). Additionally, SDA also voted for Mladen Bosić from SDS to become a delegate of the House of Peoples of PS BiH. With this act, SDA completely handed over control of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly to Milorad Dodik.

Then SDA voted for the HDZ candidate in the ZDK assembly. We know what that means in practice; HDZ also has 4 delegates in the House of Peoples at the state level.

In summary, HDZ and SNSD, with 8 delegates, control the state; the civic perspective died there. This was also evident in the proposed laws that came even from SDA deputies. They fell in the House of Peoples faster than they reached the delegates. However, Izetbegović does not give up; he only defends his dishonorable past deeds with empty rhetoric. He regularly boasts about 300,000 guaranteed votes, no matter what SDA does. But if even one more civic supporter appears, it's a bonus.

We can best see how lost he is in his politics of deception by his response to the accusations made by Aljoša Čampara against SDA, which led him to resign from his position as a member of the Presidency.

Bakir says he hasn't seen serious accusations!? Of course, he saw them, but out of fear that Čampara would definitively close the door, he gently tells him there is a place for him in SDA.

He wasn't so 'merciful' before. We will remember Šepić, Sokolović, Ahmetović, Kukić... all those who showed him a different stance.

Speaking about the Asim Sarajlić case, the SDA president emphasized that Čampara thought everything should go back to the beginning (election of the president of the Sarajevo Regional Board of SDA), but that other members did not think so.

"Mr. Čampara is my friend, I would like him to stay in the party; no one has progressed faster. At this moment, he holds three positions," said Izetbegović.

However, there is irony in this statement. So, there is a place, but only in the SDA that Izetbegović represents.

By satisfying Denis Zvizdić's personnel proposals (appointment of Rešad Mandža as director of Željeznice FBiH), Izetbegović is trying to buy the trust of the group to which Čampara belongs. He knows how much he can lose, but he doesn't know how to win them back.

Just as he doesn't know what policy he is pursuing. In fact, he knows, but he doesn't dare to talk about it publicly. He would rather talk about the fight for the civic option, which doesn't suit him at all. Because everything he has done in the past and is doing now is far from that concept.

I share Pećanin's fear that the policy personified by Bakir Izetbegović is a policy that leads to the final division of BiH, with the important prerequisite that he personally is not accused but presents it as a matter of geopolitics, history, and now he is dragging what is called civic into it.