Konaković's Leaderocracy on the Underground Wires of the Serb World: The Pro-Bosnian Bloc Survived, It's Time to Wake Up!

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

It was May 17, 2023. The House of Peoples of the Parliament of the Federation was constituted. A candidate who identifies as a Croat received a large number of votes. The same happened to a delegate who identifies as a Serb. And when it was time for Aida Obuća, as the proposal of the Bosniak Club for Deputy Speaker, Aljoša Čampara stood up and said: "I propose Izena Hajdarevića for Deputy Speaker." Thus, we got two candidates in the House of Peoples who identify as Bosniaks. Hajdarević was elected, with approximately as many Serb and Croat delegates voting for him as voted against Aida Obuća, who was the official proposal of the Bosniak Club.

At that point, Elmedin Konaković's party delivered Bosniaks to Serb-Croat politics for decision-making for the first time. Bosniaks were subsequently eliminated from the leadership of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament, as well as from numerous institutions. And that is where the story of the credibility of the People and Justice party and its leader to talk and decide on the situation of Bosniaks ends.

And today they want to convene inter-Bosniak assemblies and play a role that not even the greatest Bosniak of the 20th century, Alija Izetbegović, tried to play among Bosniaks, even though he had electoral legitimacy that no one had afterward. Konaković has no electoral legitimacy at all; citizens did not elect him; he was elected by international creators of Bosnia and Herzegovina's political landscape.

And because of that, Konaković's invitation should be considered a coordinated policy of directing Bosniaks onto Aleksandar Vučić's track. One even has the right to seriously consider the possibility that Konaković's attempt to manage Bosniaks is actually created along the lines of the Serb world. Because, as I hear, Konaković began arranging the all-Bosniak assembly at a recent iftar in Podgorica with Ervin Ibrahimović (Bosniak Party), a future partner of the Serbian authorities in Montenegro.

If we add that one of the few who will respond to the gathering will be Usame Zukorlić, Vučić's friend and Konaković's acquaintance, one can somehow discern the outline of the Serb world in the Bosniak assembly. And that is why it is important that the bad attempt of the bad congress has failed in advance.

Besides being obviously exploited by the underground currents of the Serb world, as evidenced by Vučić's support for his idea, Elmedin Konaković has clearly felt the need to try to prove that he is the leader of the Bosniaks of the Balkans. And that would translate to Rama (Albanians), Vučić (Serbs), Konaković (Bosniaks), and Milanović/Plenković (Croats) being able to resolve the Yugoslav question through some new agreement.

Given Konaković's known stances, Bosniaks would be in dire straits in that scenario. And fortunately, it is clear from the view of Konaković that this is exclusively about the need for leaderocracy, and not at all a reflection of real power and prestige among Bosniaks.

Besides that leaderocracy, which perhaps tends to grow into the concept that resolves the Yugoslav question on national issues, and perhaps it is just a pure political necessity, Konaković and the planners around him have perfidiously tried to break the space that is the only one that can redirect the discourse in which Bosnia and Herzegovina is moving.

Although it may not seem so at the moment, the nucleus of the pro-Bosnian bloc consists of the Democratic Front and the Party of Democratic Action, from left to right. All other parties that delegate to that bloc can fit between these two parties.

By not inviting even cadres or officials from the SDP, as coalition partners, Konaković is trying to separate the left political spectrum from the one that unequivocally declares itself as the center-right. With that maneuver and previously released spins about the possible unification of the SDP and DF, Konaković and his partners have tried to break the nucleus of resistance from 2022, knowing that in that circle lies a serious threat to the political survival of both the Trojka and each of its members individually.

There is no doubt that the DF and SDA, along with others who remained outside the imposed government, missed the opportunity to define the red lines of the pro-Bosnian spectrum's political threshold, which would be far more necessary at the current moment than Konaković's leaderocracy from the underground of the Serb world.

However, the failure of Konaković's attempt is evident three days after the announcement of his intentions, and the whole story will be just one of many stories for ridicule of the party and its president chosen by foreigners.

Nevertheless, that attempt must be a serious warning. While we were analyzing what Vučić was preparing with the Easter assembly, while we were sending messages of disgust at the Greater Serbian goals of that assembly, the same Vučić, through people like us, almost entered Sarajevo. Only political composure stopped him on the slopes of the city, because if he had succeeded, the consequences would have been incalculable.

Therefore, it is up to those who survived this attempt to come to their senses and realize that their time is coming to an end, but that at that end, they can make moves that will forever weave them into the historical books of BiH politics.

More by luck than skill, the life of the pro-Bosnian political perception has been saved, and consequently, the possibility that one day at a table, we will have leaders of Bosniaks together with Bosnians, Herzegovinians, and others who, based on civilizational values, will draw red lines towards the final goal - the establishment of the principles of civil democracy and the organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina on those principles.