Canton Sarajevo in disarray: Between scandals and cover-ups

Written for NAP: Faruk Selmanović, MP in the KS Assembly (SDA)

We need to be realistic, Canton Sarajevo has transformed from a symbol of possible change into an exemplary case of institutional collapse. While the prime minister and his associates still invoke "principledness," investigative bodies are raiding ministries. While they talk about legality, their appointees are subjects of arrests, suspensions, and criminal investigations.

Minister after minister, under investigation. One arrested. Another suspended. A third awaits the Prosecutor's Office's summons. A fourth remains free, solely due to the sluggishness of judicial procedures. The latest case of investigators entering the Ministry of Finance due to suspicions of illegal employment is just another in a series of serious blows to citizens' trust in the government.

At the head of that Ministry stands an appointee of the ruling Trio. And instead of an answer, we received a statement from Prime Minister Nihad Uk: "Our principles are firm." But Mr. Prime Minister, you are insulting the intelligence of the citizens.

Because, while you talk about principles, your officials are hiring without competition. While you talk about responsibility, your people are increasingly ending up in handcuffs. Citizens no longer look at the Government with hope, but with ridicule. Not because of political cynicism, but because of the open mockery they endure daily.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. This is a system. A system in which laws apply selectively. In which justice is used as a tool of political revenge, and then forgotten when it's time for one's own people. Canton Sarajevo is collapsing not due to accidental mistakes, but due to systemic irresponsibility.

Let's look at the concrete situation.

While subsidies for young people are delayed for more than two years, plans for their future strategy are being drafted by people who are – in custody.

The Trio proposes merging institutions with institutions that do not exist, an administrative fiction that moves from the absurd to science fiction.

Democratic dialogue is being extinguished, the opposition is being silenced, the Speaker of the Assembly uses the rules not to lead the debate, but to stifle it.

Public office is losing its purpose, there are more advisors and fewer results.

And while the system is falling apart at the seams, citizens' safety is seriously threatened. The shooting in the migrant center in Blažuj, with multiple injured, is an alarm that the authorities are ignoring.

Meanwhile, public health is compromised due to irregular deratization. The appearance of leptospirosis was met with blame being shifted to citizens.

The Clinical Center is in general chaos, data on hospital infections in newborns is being hidden. And perhaps the most bizarre example of institutional negligence: the veterinary station has not reacted for weeks to the appearance of infected animals.

Cows positive for brucellosis were left without any adequate measures, because – now listen to this – the Smiljevići landfill no longer has a permit for the disposal of this type of animal waste. With this oversight, the ruling Trio has directly endangered the health and lives of both animals and people.

Those in power have no right to invoke the "rule of law" because they themselves have degraded it. When they targeted the former prime minister, mayor, directors, or employees who were not politically convenient for them, then the rules did not apply. Today, when suspicions pile up within their own ranks, they call for professionalism and restraint.

A society in which laws are enforced selectively is not democratic; it is anarchy. And injustice always has a price: loss of trust, a sense of helplessness, the departure of young people, and social apathy. And once trust is lost, it is difficult to regain.

This government promised hope and change. It brought humiliation and ruin. Sarajevo, which was the bearer of Bosnia and Herzegovina's European perspective, now increasingly resembles a European quarantine.
But the responsibility is not only on the government. It is also on us – the citizens.

It is up to us not to remain silent, not to forget, not to accept standards that drag us back every day. Because when institutions turn into political toys, when scandals become normalized, when laws cease to apply to the privileged, then it is high time for the people to say: enough.

It is time to restore dignity to public institutions. To demand accountability. Justice. Honesty.

Because if not us, who? If not now, when? The crisis we are in today is a direct consequence of an irresponsible and incompetent government. Prime Minister Uk, instead of constant PR performances, owes the citizens of Canton Sarajevo an apology and resignation, if not for political, then at least for moral reasons. Because morality – however much the ruling trio tries to relativize it – is still not a "fluid category".