PROMISES, THE TRIO, DECEPTION: Youth Flee the Country Due to the Regime's Step-Motherly Treatment

For Patria, Muamer Bandić, representative of the Party for BiH in the KS Assembly

Every government, for a democratic society to function, must maintain at least a semblance of connection between what it says and what it does. As long as this thin connection is maintained, the government enjoys the trust of the citizens and society functions smoothly.

Where the government says one thing and does another, citizens protest. This is exactly what is happening today in Sarajevo, where young people have taken to the streets to protest because the ruling three-headed government has deceived them.

Let's recall the grand promises of the current ruling elite: to “establish a youth mobility fund,” “introduce incentives for young married couples to encourage family establishment,” then “introduce tax relief for the purchase and construction of their first property,” “provide access to modern technological aids for youth,” then “establish a Youth Agency,” introduce “interest-free loans for young people to start businesses,” “establish psychological counseling centers for youth,” then “establish and capacitate youth centers,” then “develop cultural content tailored for youth,” provide “incentives for the purchase of their first property,” then “implement a subsidized housing loan program,” and so on, the false promises of our virtuous, brave, and honest leaders can be listed endlessly. The madness even went as far as promising the return of “youth work actions.”

Today, two years after all these numerous promises, the government first avoids discussing the problems of young people, let alone doing anything concrete about them!?

It is enough to look at the Sarajevo Canton Budget for 2024, where only 500,000 KM has been allocated for subsidizing housing solutions for young people, to understand how much this government actually cares about young people and their problems. They even rejected the amendment by the Party for BiH to the proposed budget to increase funds for this purpose by approximately 15 million KM this year. In the 2023 budget, almost 5.5 million KM was allocated for subsidizing housing solutions for young people, and even those funds proved insufficient. And it must be honestly stated that if it weren't for the ministers from the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sarajevo Canton's allocation for subsidizing housing solutions for young people in 2023 would have remained at a meager half a million marks, and young people today would be in a situation where they would spend more money on obtaining paperwork than they would receive from the Canton, which will certainly be the case with the 2024 subsidies, when the Trio independently decides on these matters.

I will also remind you of the past policies of the Trio parties and the basic principles on which they build their relationship with young people.

Namely, according to legal legislation, students who pass all exams from the previous year with an average grade above 8.0 are exempt from paying tuition fees. A truly commendable activity, motivating, to ease the financial burden of education for the best students.

In 2023, the KS Government manipulated students and did not refund the money, imagine the absurdity, due to a lack of harmonization of regulations and procedures that it itself prescribed.

Ultimately, after public pressure, students forced the Sarajevo Canton Assembly and obtained a decision that allowed them to get their tuition fees refunded.

The Trio parties, even if they had some policies that would genuinely benefit young people, have completely undermined them through communication with young people, by promising them something, and then making an effort not to fulfill the promise.

If they do fulfill it, it is only under duress and under significantly different and more difficult conditions, which ultimately leads young people to seek a place to live outside of BiH.

Establishing the right to refund enrollment fees - tuition fees or defining the conditions and criteria for subsidizing housing solutions for young people represents a serious offer that can motivate them not to leave this beautiful country.

Subsequently changing the conditions, criteria, and procedures, which make it more difficult for young people to realize the offered rights, causes general distrust among young people, and the entire society, in the government.

With such actions, we will certainly not establish a just system of government, nor will we provide citizens with legal and all other security, and ultimately, we will not ensure a safe and pleasant place to live. On the contrary, this government, through political power, is playing with young people and students, creating general insecurity and distrust in the institutions of the system.

While all this is happening, we can expect a new set of empty promises and “concrete” policies from the rulers to solve the problems of young people. One such gem is already coming from the party that rejected our amendment to increase allocations for subsidizing housing solutions for young people in 2024. Namely, representatives of the ruling coalition in the Sarajevo Canton Assembly have submitted an initiative to pay the difference in funds to young people who are protesting today in the public call for 2024. The initiative is truly commendable, if only some serious funds had been planned in the budget for this purpose. As it is, this is merely a futile attempt to replace one lie with an even bigger one.

In the meantime, our children will seek happiness elsewhere. They will go where they can find a job without connections, where they can live from their work, and where they will not be lied to and deceived by various obscure figures who built their education on fraud and dubious degrees, and their careers on lies.

And while the international community and serious experts are raising alarms about the departure of young people, the question arises whether, with this kind of Trio government, Šantić's words “Stay here!... The sun of a foreign sky / Will not warm you like this one does” still make sense. With such a ruling oligarchy, lost in time, space, and the very idea of societal organization, Šantić's verses become a harbinger of the dark fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Nenad Veličković's words are more applicable: “Stay there, the sun of this sky / Will not warm you like that foreign one does / Bitter are the bites of bread here / Where there is no home and where there is no work.”

When you live under a government created by foreigners through the dirtiest anti-democratic post-election engineering, it is illusory to expect that this government will work in your interest and address the needs of your children. The Trio's priorities are consistently the needs of “businessmen” in Posušje or Laktaši, rather than the children of Sarajevo. Just don't listen to what they say, but watch what they actually do, or rather, where our money goes, and everything will become clear!