The Art of 'Ruling' by Mayor Karić: Ćevapi and Diamonds in Baščaršija, a Smoke Break for Merlin and Halid B. in Novi Sarajevo!

By Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

Since the beginning of her term, Sarajevo Mayor Benjamina Karić has shown a penchant for unusual moves that have sometimes evoked ridicule, sometimes anger, and sometimes pity from the public and her sophisticated city circle.

The City of Sarajevo consists of four municipalities - Stari Grad, Centar, Novo Sarajevo, and Novi Grad. In the past almost four years, Benjamina Karić, as mayor, has strived to prove herself to the citizens of Stari Grad, the locals, and tourists as much as possible. Because the focus of her work has been Baščaršija and parts of Stari Grad.

Admittedly, she has appeared in Centar as well, but Baščaršija is where Karić most often “performed” her mayoral duties. In Baščaršija, she distributed baklava, and those in the know say she will be distributing ćevapi tomorrow. She placed a diamond, a gift to the City of Sarajevo, in front of the Baščaršija Mosque, demonstrating an elementary lack of understanding of the rules of Islamic places of worship. Because, in Islam, neither statues, nor metal/plastic, nor any other figures and objects have a place in front of a house of worship where people seek spiritual peace. When citizens clearly and loudly pointed out that this was not right, fearing a bad image, she moved the diamond in front of the Otoka swimming pool.

And that is roughly the only thing Mayor Benjamina Karić has done for the citizens of Sarajevo living in the municipality of Novi Grad. Unlike Baščaršija and occasional work and visits in Centar, where she bought an apartment, we have not, and likely will not, see her in Novi Grad.

Citizens of Novi Sarajevo have also not seen her in the past four years. True, she recently appeared on Wilson's Promenade in that municipality, but she is also a candidate for mayor, so it is clear that this appearance was more of a political move than a mayoral one.

However, the mayor has offered the residents of Novi Sarajevo an unprecedented form of entertainment. In the absence of a clear vision and programmatic investments, Karić, or rather the City of Sarajevo, in cooperation with the Mozaik Foundation, has installed a hanging ashtray with the names of two of the biggest stars of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian music scene written above two holes for cigarette butts.

Thus, the place for discarding cigarette butts has become a polling station between Dino Merlin and Halid B. Yes, they wrote B because, presumably, the ashtray did not have enough space to write the last name. Perhaps Karić and her partners find this amusing, but it is undoubtedly a humiliation for the names of two of the biggest stars of BiH music to be on an ashtray and for popularity to be decided in this way. The citizens of BiH and Sarajevo have long expressed their opinions about the musical duo, but many in the comments mocked the city of Sarajevo for the mayor's “investment”.

Given that numerous media outlets reported on this unusual ashtray, but there is no official information on whether this is a pilot item, who made it, and how, we tried to obtain official information.

No one from the Mozaik Foundation responded to us, and initially, no one from the City Administration answered our calls. The Foundation is an association, but for no one in the City Administration to answer the phone number that works, and for the official landline to be unavailable (407-443 is listed on the letterhead), is unacceptable. Then they got back to us, and after being transferred from phone to phone, we got the number of the public relations person, but we still did not receive answers.

It is an understatement to say it is unacceptable, because the City of Sarajevo and the mayor should serve the citizens of the four city municipalities, and how are citizens supposed to reach them when no one answers the phone or knows the answers.

Given the mayor's behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the City Administration employees have gone on a "smoke break" to the Campus, to vote again on who is the bigger star – Merlin or Bešlić.