We need the best and most honest among us in politics

Mr.sci Adis Arapović, political scientist, project manager at CCI, comments in his own specific way on the announcements of changes to the electoral legislation, shortcomings of the electoral process, while at the same time talking about political duplicity, the reasons for complete irresponsibility, the farce in the new Law on Party Financing, what has kept us trapped in an unresolved state for 20 years. Arapović, unlike most others, offers solutions to every minor dilemma and shows ways out of this situation.

Patria: You were right when you recently said that local elections must be held next year. Although these are constitutional provisions, our political leaders have already begun to speak confidently about postponing the elections until 2018. It was tragically ignorant and arrogant of the people representing this country. One of them even said that negotiations were underway to postpone the elections. Why was there no reaction from those who are obliged to protect the Constitution and laws of this country?

Arapović: I think the attempt to impose the idea of postponing local elections was a smokescreen, a cheap attempt at a tactical maneuver and testing the public's pulse. There is still no real threat to the Constitution and the democratic order, because this vague, amateur, and opportunistic idea can be challenged without much effort, both in expert debate and before the Constitutional Court.

To summarize my earlier views on this. A political mandate, which is limited to 4 years by the Constitution, cannot be retroactively extended simply because the authorities are allegedly dedicated to reforms and would abolish elections. The supposed savings from not holding elections cannot absolve anyone of responsibility to the voters. According to that retrograde Bolshevik logic, hypothetically, we could extend the mandates of all politicians not for two but for 20 years. The savings would be much greater, and there would be no pre-election campaigns for two decades, so people could do whatever they pleased, without the risk of losing power and privileges in elections. If there was no reaction from the PIC, OHR, or CIK, which I assume you are referring to, they probably assessed themselves that it was a shot in the dark.

Patria: Branko Petrić, president of the Interdepartmental Working Group for Amendments to the Electoral Legislation, admits that amending the Election Law is difficult to implement in a short period, that there will be no significant changes to the Election Law, because it also involves changes to the Constitution, laws, and municipal statutes. Nevertheless, he announced that one possible change in the local elections would be to increase the threshold from three to five percent and the party threshold to 10 percent. Why is one change possible and another not? Are you in favor of partial changes or complete changes to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Arapović: For several years now, I have advocated for the adoption of a completely new Election Law, including corrections to the Constitutional provisions that are part of the electoral system. Cosmetic changes are meaningless, as they generally benefit larger and ruling political parties, which for the past 10 years, except for the so-called women's quotas, have not allowed any substantial improvements to the electoral system, but on the contrary - they have either tried or succeeded in derogating good solutions for the sake of particular party or personal interests, so for several election cycles we have been living under illegal and/or illegitimate governments.

For example, the Council of Ministers does not include Others, although the Constitution states that it must! Political corruption is charged to the RS entity government in its own appointment. The Federal Government violates the Constitution through political coercion, and amends laws to align them with Decrees, which is a nebulous dictatorial practice. The best example of the above statement is the disempowerment of the Central Election Commission through the new Law on Conflict of Interest, according to which some parliamentary political commission supposedly determines conflicts of interest with its party colleagues or bosses, to whom, incidentally, they hold a candle in the party hierarchy.

The Law on Financing Political Parties is another proof of irresponsible farce.

Why do we finance parties from the budget when we know that they are the biggest generators of political corruption and large-scale corruption? Twenty million marks annually, which is thrown into bottomless party wells, would significantly raise the standard of living for pensioners or new mothers. There is no money for them, but there is for parties, because parties decide on it.

The same matrix is in effect for the reform of the Election Law. Reforms that do not suit the ruling majority will be declared bad or unfeasible or expensive or eliminated due to a lack of "political will", which is a universal amnesty for everyone for everything. Therefore, I call on the EU to declare the reform of the electoral system a top political priority, because I cannot imagine considering a candidate application with such a discriminatory Constitution and Election Law that encourages apartheid, corruption, political crises...

Patria: What does increasing the threshold to five percent mean in such political relations? It seems to me that the enormous power of national parties was once tried to be curbed by allowing more smaller parties to participate in forming the government. Tomorrow, we could have completely "nationalized" parties in parliament. I fear that this would lead to duplicated houses of representatives, just indirectly elected houses of peoples.

Arapović: Increasing the threshold to 5% is a hidden instrument for transitioning from a proportional to a majority electoral model. Either a majority or a proportional model is the fundamental and first characteristic of any electoral system. A lower threshold means more pluralism and better proportionality, and thus legitimacy. A higher threshold means a bloc political offer and a move towards a majority system of mandate distribution, which no complex and multi-ethnic country in the world prefers. Therefore, this is a controversial issue and carries several good and several bad scenarios. If it were applied to local elections, very few or no Bosniaks, for example, would win mandates in the municipal assemblies in the RS entity, thereby politically completing ethnic cleansing.

Thus, for example, "constituent quotas" can be ensured in local parliaments, as they exist for the participation of national minorities. This is then space for multi-ethnic lists for all parties, so these quotas structurally disrupt the mono-ethnic electoral paradigm.

At higher levels, raising the threshold to 5% inevitably leads to a consolidation of the political scene and very likely to two-party or bipolar blocs in the RS, within the predominantly Bosniak territory, and the absolute dominance of the HDZ in the predominantly Croatian territory.

So, who benefits from raising the threshold? Exclusively the parties around which these blocs will be formed, namely SNSD, SDS, SDA, and HDZ, and in the future SDP. All others will have to accept the role of satellites who will sooner or later be assimilated or disappear from the political scene, until a political alternative emerges.

However, the other extreme is completely dysfunctional or extremely unstable cantonal assemblies, short-lived governments, the prevalence of personal and micro-party interests over public interest, etc. Raising the threshold will necessarily lead to the programmatic and ideological profiling of parties, and then pre-election coalitions with the parent party in the center, so after two decades, voters will start voting for ideology, values, and programs, as opposed to the current "nothing".

Patria: Who is a member of this interdepartmental group for amending the Election Law? Who is involved in the discussions about changes to the Election Law? What kind of public debate would you like to see on the issues of amending the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Arapović: The Election Law, after the Constitution, is the foundation of the democratic order. Its content, therefore, cannot be determined at the discretion of any ad-hoc working group, composed of three members each from the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples, the Council of Ministers, and the Central Election Commission, nor by the current political majority in the state parliament. This Law must be the product of a broader social consensus, of the government and the opposition, of the left and the right, with respect for the views of the expert public, civil society, and the election administration. Why not decide by referendum on critical points of the new Election Law or its constitutional elements? Why do parties shy away from direct democracy on key issues for the state and the nation? Where is the possibility of cardinal error or manipulation greater - when about 30 people in parliament decide on the Law, or 3 million citizens? The democratic maturity and political progress of both political actors and society as a whole will be proven in the reform of the electoral system.

Patria: How to implement the Strasbourg Decision "Sejdić - Finci"? This also includes answers to the decided appeals "Pilav" and "Zornić". Is there a possibility to separate the collective from the civic in the electoral process? How to finally overcome the constant opposition of our electoral process to human rights conventions?

Arapović: First, I do not think that the collective should be separated from the individual, but quite the opposite - to integrate and balance the share of one and the other principle. The attempt for one to dominate the other has kept us trapped for 20 years. There can be no dominance of any principle without it lasting and bringing good.

There is no progressive society and state in the world, especially in Europe, where individual rights are subordinated to abstract, manipulative collective rights. This is the key characteristic of dictatorships, fascisms, and communisms, with all their modern derivatives. Whoever blindly insists on collectivization is a hidden communist or fascist, with personal interests above all.

Where is the way out? Upper houses of parliaments are key places for protecting collective interests around the world. On the other hand, full protection of human and political rights, which is an integral part of our Constitution, is the recipe for establishing the boundaries of individual rights. Vital national interests must be modeled, realized, specified, reduced, and given for sovereign protection by strengthened and legitimized Houses of Peoples or similar bodies at all levels, if necessary down to the municipal level, but in a way that they deal only with critical issues, and not with every law and decision that comes to Parliament.

The House of Peoples cannot be a parallel House of Representatives with the same prerogatives, plus an ethnic veto. All other political bodies must be on the electoral market and filled in such a way that all citizens have equal active and passive voting rights, without reduction based on national or territorial affiliation.

Patria: Semi-closed lists are proposed to increase gender equality in elections. One wonders what about compensatory lists, couldn't they serve that purpose? What is the fate of compensatory lists in the amendments to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was this issue discussed?

Arapović: These are actually blocked semi-closed lists, where voters are not given the possibility of preferential voting, i.e., the possibility for someone from a lower position on the list to receive the most votes due to the will of the voters and be elected is abolished. Gender equality is a transparent and false argument for the true ambition of party leaders to abolish preferential voting, which bothers them because citizens choose whom they consider good, not whom the parties serve them. Yes, the representation of women can be ensured according to the existing model, and through compensatory lists, which can actually be additional women's lists.

Also, a mandatory "women's quota" can be prescribed in parliaments, so regardless of the number of votes won, every second or third mandate won would have to be filled by a woman from the party list. This would give parties an equal number of mandates, but also a mandatory number of women in parliaments. Therefore, closing lists is not an attempt for the sake of women, but due to the political greed of party leaders to have mandates exclusively for loyal cadres, without necessary legitimacy among the electorate. Competition, rivalry, excellence, nobility, winning the electorate through one's own quality, would be drowned out by aggressive political marketing that would eliminate the best candidates in favor of party soldiers.

Patria: How to resolve the situation in Mostar with total segregation and absolute discrimination of two out of three peoples? How to give Brčko residents rights for upper houses like other local levels have?

Arapović: When the quality of political representation of these discriminated peoples changes, the issue of Mostar will also be resolved. I do not see great dissatisfaction with the current situation in Mostar among political representatives. It's as if everyone is comfortable with controlled chaos. It's as if people have reconciled themselves to disorder as a normal state. When we stop accepting disorder, disorder will disappear. In principle, you cannot advocate for decentralization at one level where you are a minority, and centralization at another where you are a majority, regardless of whether you present yourself as one of the leaders of Bosniaks or Croats. Therefore, whatever one has at a higher level, the other must have at a lower level. We should compete in humanity, in protecting the weaker from the stronger, and then there will be neither majorization nor domination, because both bring only harm in the long run.

During the reforms of the Constitution and the electoral system, voters from Brčko with federal citizenship can be provided with political representation either through the Tuzla or Posavina cantonal assembly, which is more difficult to regulate, or directly through guaranteed seats in the federal House of Peoples, and thus indirectly in the state House of Peoples.

Patria: If only partial amendments to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina are possible, as Petrić announces, what could be the priority changes? Is it, for starters, the removability of cadres, dissolution and recall from all elected positions. I believe that these possibilities could strengthen institutions, accountability, and the work of elected officials.

Arapović: Yes, I consider the introduction of the institute of extraordinary elections for all directly elected bodies in the General Elections to be a top priority. Clarifying procedures, shortening deadlines for the implementation of election results, and extraordinary elections as an instrument for political de-blocking and sanctioning political irresponsibility would fundamentally shake the complacent establishment, aware that there are almost no sanctions between two elections for what has been done or not done. Also, by introducing electronic voting or at least ballot counting, almost all problems with manipulations in polling stations would be resolved, election results would be known on the same night they were held, and citizens' trust in the electoral process would increase the turnout rate, which is the foundation of progress and the reflection of the real and majority will of citizens in political institutions.

Patria: Can we really achieve any democratic changes with such political and other relations? This system looks more like a collection of segregationist constructs. Least like what it falsely presents itself as: spontaneous chaos due to incompetence in democratic processes.

Arapović: That's right. Without these few fundamental changes I have spoken about, this country will continue to be an unsuccessful and probably permanently endangered political abstraction. The new electoral system must strengthen institutions, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights. The concentration of power within political parties, the individuals who manage them, and others who are commercially linked to these individuals has gone too far. Inequalities and injustices are growing, which inevitably leads to social, and then political destabilization and the collapse of a distorted and unfair order. Clan-based partyocracy must be defeated by democratization and meritocracy. The most excellent and most honest among us must become a political alternative, either in existing or new parties. For two decades, we have nurtured a culture of idleness, mediocrity, corruption, and clientelism. When we cleanse ourselves morally, become politically literate, and are patriotically encouraged, we will emerge from our own medieval darkness.