Left-wing parties: Between the BH Bloc and BiH

Perhaps on January 29th, it will be known whether Bosnia and Herzegovina will get a strong bloc of civic parties in power, as a fourth, multinational, and the only possible Bosnia and Herzegovina. This bloc would stand opposite nationalist parties that are coordinatedly and externally pulling the country and its citizens in three directions. Or will SDP, DF, and Our Party remain in the deep shade of well-paid opposition and join the largely useless role of the 12,000 or so NGOs that exist in BiH according to the last census, as well as formal and informal plenums, eternal oppositionists who are fed mainly by honest domestic and foreign taxpayers.

Our Party has already decided. "The Presidency, at its session on January 19th in Sarajevo, unanimously decided that this party will not enter into a coalition with SDA, HDZ, and SNSD. The Democratic Front will present its final position at a joint meeting at the end of the month. SDP has stated that they have the strength to tackle SDA, HDZ, and SNSD, but they will not fight alone. 'We are not prepared to sacrifice the BH Bloc,' said Nikšić, adding: 'The BH Bloc is the future of the BiH political scene and something that has 'awakened hope in the citizens of BiH'.' As things stand, the three partners are excluding each other and retreating to the bottom. Although it is not clear how and when the situation arose where the great and century-old ideology of SDP is conditioned by the, perhaps, prospective, but still unstable Our Party.

Nikšić is right. The BH Bloc is definitely 'the future of the BiH political scene and something that has awakened hope in the citizens of BiH'. In the October elections, citizens gave a large number of votes to civic parties. Three parties, SDP, DF, and NS, were supported by slightly more than 284,000 voters, compared to SDA, which received around 250,000 votes, and 145,000 votes received by the six parties gathered around HDZ. Around 260,000 votes were secured by SNSD, as the strongest political party in Republika Srpska, which is again less than the total votes of SDP, DF, and NS.

SDA won around 252,000 votes in the Federal Parliament, HDZ and parties from that coalition won 143,000, while SDP, DF, and Our Party won around 290,000 votes. This is that bloc and that fourth side for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Therefore, there is no doubt that the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina increasingly want the changes offered by civic parties, as opposed to the national divisions that national parties have been promoting for a long time.

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the situation arose where SDP, DF, and Our Party refused to take responsibility. SDP will not enter government if Our Party does not. And Our Party will not if SDA, HDZ, and Dodik do. And since the government cannot be formed without these three national parties, it turns out that the nearly 300,000 citizens who want change in the country have done so in vain.

It is true when Nikšić says that the BH Bloc is definitely 'the future of the BiH political scene and something that has awakened hope in the citizens of BiH', but citizens probably counted on the BH Bloc having to take risks and engage in a fight with the accumulated problems in the country. It turns out that in democratic and developed societies, the opposition is always eager to take power, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the left is eager to unite in opposition.

Civic parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina found themselves in shock in the nineties. They lost elections to national parties, after which bloodshed began on the soil of Europe. Great-power nationalisms are now reawakening in neighboring Croatia and Serbia, and these problems are only multiplying in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Citizens are once again being poisoned by hatred and fear. The naive rush into nationalism because that is all that is served to them.

It is certainly not a common occurrence for some policies and people to be given the opportunity to decide the fate of a country and its citizens. This, undoubtedly, carries enormous risk and responsibility. It is precisely in such opportunities that the ability of leaders is shown. State-building decisions are never easy and simple. Often, one chooses the lesser of two evils.

In order to even talk about the 'future of the BiH political scene' in BiH, it is first necessary to meet minimum criteria, for example, that Bosnia and Herzegovina survives as a state at all. Therefore, the discussions about whether SDP, DF, and Our Party should enter government or remain in opposition are practically discussions about whether Bosnia and Herzegovina should be preserved as a state, or left to the national wolves to finish it off. The left in BiH has so far chosen to preserve the left bloc over preserving the BH bloc and the state.

When a local imam, a joker, tried to convince the leftists/traitors of Sarajevo that they should enter into a coalition with SDA, HDZ, and SNSD, he explained it like this: 'If you enter the government, no matter how small you are, you will know what the others are planning and you will be able to react in time. If you remain in opposition, you will only read in the newspapers what is happening in the country.'