Crescendo of political crises on the horizon

By Adis Arapović, political scientist

Observing and at least superficially analyzing the events on the political scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last few weeks, it is impossible not to notice the obvious connections between seemingly unrelated events and processes.

On one hand, these are the increasingly frequent meetings and more coordinated positions of the SNSD and HDZ leadership regarding the SNSD's initiative to correct the method of election and decision-making of judges in the Constitutional Court of BiH.

Setting aside the announced request of these two parties to eliminate foreign judges and introduce simple ethnic voting in the Constitutional Court, which is a little-known phenomenon in legal theory and almost non-existent practice anywhere on the planet. Setting aside the fact that the method of nominating and electing judges of constitutional courts, which are often or mostly filled with candidates with more political than judicial experience, or more precisely, candidates from the first echelon of leading political parties, and not from the first echelon of professional circles, who then direct their loyalty to their parent party, not to the law and the general good, is a bigger problem than the aforementioned. Setting aside these elementary arguments, because it is a tactical maneuver of a broader scope.

What is the possible background of the announced legislative initiative on the "reform of constitutional judiciary"?

First, even if the announced initiative is disclosed in Parliament and appears on the agenda of one of the houses, there is almost no chance it will receive the required qualified majority in the House of Representatives, i.e., an entity majority from the Federation of BiH (representatives of SDA, SBB, SDP, DF, BPS, A-SDA, which is a total of 24, i.e., more than half of the house, would almost certainly vote against), just as there is almost no chance it will receive a qualified majority of the Bosniak club in the House of Peoples, making the chances of the aforementioned Law being rejected actually 200 percent!

The initiator certainly counts on the initial rejection of the initiative, which will not be able to pass through the Constitutional-Legal Commission, nor through the Collegium, so the probability of it appearing on the agenda at all is small. Nevertheless, this initial phase will serve to escalate political relations in which SNSD (with the benevolent stance of the Alliance for Change?) and HDZ would be on one side, and Bosniak and all other parties on the other side of the chessboard. Escalation of relations will necessarily lead to the blockade of the State Parliament, at least the House of Peoples for a start, depending on the position of the Alliance for Change, by blocking the work of the collegium and the inability to convene sessions and agree on agendas. All legal projects and reforms at the BiH level will thus be halted, and the international community will understand that the greatest legal-political crisis to date is imminent.

By imposing a crisis in Parliament over the issue of the Constitutional Court at the beginning of 2017, a favorable starting position is actually generated for the next moves that SNSD can make regarding the same issue, which is a referendum on the composition and decision-making method in the Constitutional Court, following the same pattern as in the case of the first referendum in September 2016.

Second, this same starting position benefits both SNSD and HDZ in the event that the issue of implementing the Sejdić and Finci judgment, through constitutional and electoral law reforms, is put on the agenda under foreign pressure. The support that SNSD will receive from HDZ on the issue of the Constitutional Court would be reciprocated by SNSD's support for HDZ to help formalize the "Croatian electoral issue" through constitutional and electoral law reforms, and the Bosniak side would be isolated on this issue as well. In the event of the Alliance for Change opposing the SNSD's initiative, they would be propagandistically declared traitors and asked to resign from state government, and SNSD would be brought in, with the full support of HDZ. This will not be feasible without Bosniak votes, so an escalation of the crisis and a threat of paralysis of all state functions, blockade of legislative power and the coordination mechanism can be expected, during the period of preparing the response to the EU questionnaire, until the Bosniak side gives in and SNSD enters the Council of Ministers.

While this fabricated crisis at the BiH level is ongoing, one of its goals being to create an environment for calling a new referendum, public finances in the Republika Srpska entity are under unbearable pressure. Public debt at the end of 2016 will exceed the red ceiling of 60 percent of GDP, with a tendency for rapid growth, whereby on January 1, 2017, every citizen of RS with a per capita debt of over 4,500 KM will be almost twice as indebted as a citizen of the Federation of BiH.

The financial collapse of RS, without the IMF tranche which will not arrive soon and without the possibility of internal borrowing, as banks are sliding towards isolationism, can only be slowed down by rapid cuts on the expenditure side of the budget, i.e., dramatic cuts in salaries, social benefits and budget transfers to agriculture, public enterprises, pension and health funds, etc. These measures necessarily produce revolt and social dissatisfaction that grows in parallel with the artificial political crisis at the BiH level. The RS authorities are thus actually aiming to manage opposing risks, where by raising political tensions, they will actually dirigistically manage the financial-social crisis in the entity, keeping it under control by increasing the pressure of the political crisis, so social unrest should be preempted by forming an ultimate political crisis and the greatest threat to the survival of RS, which the regime can certainly indoctrinate by emphasizing the threat from the OHR, terrorists, NATO, etc. This will be a political ultimatum to foreign actors as well, to ensure financing from abroad at all costs, because otherwise the process is heading towards unquestionable social, and then ethnic conflict!

On the other hand, in the Federation of BiH, the political relations between coalition partners SDA, SBB, and HDZ have never been at a lower level, which is primarily generated by their own sense of inferiority of the so-called "Bosniak unity." On one hand, SDA has been experiencing tectonic internal upheavals since the announcement of the local election results, which threaten the party's implosion, weakening of political power and loss of formal parliamentary majorities. On the other hand, SBB is still chewing the bitter leaf of electoral debacle due to the unfinished joint appearance with SDA in the local elections, while its leader is going through a judicial ordeal with all the elements of a political farce. Both sides, in order to curb centrifugal forces within their own ranks, vitally need an external enemy, so they find it in their closest political ally, SDA in SBB, and SBB in SDA. Thus, the self-proclaimed "Bosniak unity" now, in addition to never having had content, is losing the very form of a unified political project, and the Federation of BiH, halfway through the current mandate, is increasingly sliding towards economic and social abortion with dire consequences.

Nevertheless, raising the temperature of mutual relations benefits both sides, because the Federation of BiH also faces very painful cuts in the coming months due to an equally bad budget situation where over 55 percent of budget revenues go to debt repayment, with borrowing not stopping even as we read this, primarily because the expected money from the IMF is not coming, so the budget deficit at the beginning of 2017 is several tens of millions of KM.

At a time when the Government of the Federation of BiH can no longer even sell treasury bills to commercial banks, rapid cuts on the expenditure side of the budget are inevitable, by cutting salaries in the public sector, reducing social transfers, both to war and non-war categories, and reducing all other government transfers. At the same time, due to the irreparable deficit of the PIO Fund, pension payments will become, after debt repayment, the second budget priority, pensions will be paid from the budget, which will further narrow the room for maneuver with available budget money. This will ultimately lead to enormous dissatisfaction among budget and extra-budgetary users, first those of the third order, such as disabled civilians, farmers, miners, and other employees in struggling public enterprises, then those of the second order, such as public administration, healthcare, and police, and finally pensioners. Under the table, activities on the sale of BH Telecom and remaining public enterprises, all the way to Elektroprivreda, will likely be accelerated to guarantee debt repayment and at least temporary consolidation of public finances.

However, the fabricated political crisis regarding the Constitutional Court, potential referendum, paralysis of state functions, and blockade of the European path will serve to channel social dissatisfaction towards ethnic homogenization and the articulation of the political crisis as the dominant threat to state (SDA), national (HDZ, SNSD, SDA), and entity (SNSD) interests. Thus, a signal will also be sent from the Federation that the foreign factor should finance the calming of tensions and the freezing of the crisis with new loan tranches.

In this grand game, it is impossible to expect a passive role from neighboring countries first, and then from the OHR, EU, and USA, but also from Russia and Turkey. According to the laws of "game theory," the outcome in such a constellation is impossible to predict, but it is evident that the state-building factor is on the defensive, that political power has predominantly shifted from institutions to two non-state-building parties, that the financial resources of both entities are exhausted, that the overinflated balloon of the public sector and consumption will either burst or begin to deflate uncontrollably, and that this will produce many projected and unexpected crises, breakdowns, and unrest at all levels.

Perhaps this will be the turning point of our transition from which we can emerge either as a failed state on the path to dissolution or as a consolidated consociation and a complex but functioning political habitat within the European Union and NATO.

However, for the latter, a necessary prerequisite will be the consolidation of the political scene, which the current actors simply will not and cannot consolidate; it is contrary to all their interests, so a colossal clash will occur in the conflict of interests of mastodons in the form of large political parties and the surging dissatisfaction of the majority of BiH citizens revolted by class stratification, corruption, poverty, weak institutions, a handicapped legal order, and a rogue political caste. The new year has not brought more anxiety and more hope simultaneously for a long time.