SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (PA) – Irma Baralija is looking forward to Sunday, when she intends to vote and hopes to win the race, as the southern Bosnian town of Mostar has held its first local elections in 12 years.
To make this vote possible in his hometown, Baralija, 36, had to sue Bosnia before the European Court of Human Rights for letting a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties prevent it, together with about 100,000 residents of Mostar, to vote or participate in municipal elections for over a decade.
Winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes that he “threw away the myth (that nationalist parties) were feeding us, that an individual cannot advance things, that we only count as members of our ethnic groups.”
Only one ethnic group has dominated Bosnian politics since the end of the country’s devastating 1992-95 war, which pitted the three main ethnic factions – Serbs, Croats and Muslims – after dismantling Yugoslavia.
“I hope that my example will inspire the citizens of Mostar, when they vote on Sunday, to be brave, to realize that, as individuals, we can bring about positive change,” said Baralija, who is running for a municipal council seat on the small ticket. -ethnic our party.
Divided between Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control of the city during the 1990s conflict, Mostar has not conducted a local poll since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court ruled its electoral rules discriminatory and ordered changes them.
The dominant Bosnian and Croatian nationalist parties, SDA and HDZ, respectively, have spent more than a decade failing to agree on how to do so. Meanwhile, Mostar was led by a de facto interim mayor, Ljubo Beslic of HDZ, and his office, which includes SDA representatives, with no local council to oversee their work or the allocation of nearly 230 million euros from the city’s coffers. which they have spent over the years.
Left without fully functioning institutions, Mostar – one of the poor Balkan country’s main tourist destinations – has seen its infrastructure crumble, rubbish repeatedly accumulating on its streets and the treatment of hazardous waste and sewage sludge. was dumped in its only landfill, which was supposed to be for non-hazardous waste.
An agreement between the two sides, approved by top EU and US diplomats in Bosnia, was finally reached in June – eight months after the Strasbourg court ruled in Baralija’s favor and gave Bosnia six months. to amend their electoral laws so that voting can take place in Mostar.
Mostar is divided in half by the river Neretva. During the war, Croats moved to the west and Muslims to the east. Since the fighting stopped, the city has had two post offices, two electricity and water suppliers, two telephone networks, two public hospitals and much more – a broken set for each ethnic group.
On Sunday, several small, multiethnic parties will compete for seats on the city council, after campaigning on bread and butter issues. But the nationalist parties HDZ and SDA hope that, among them, they will secure a two-thirds majority in the council and retain control of power.
Recognizing that nationalists have armies of loyal voters that they mobilize by arousing ethnic distrust, candidates in the non-nationalist elections in Mostar hope that the last 12 years have shown that these two parties are too corrupt and incompetent.
“I think many people have finally realized that abstract ethnic interests are meaningless as their children go (Mostar) en masse in search of a decent job and a decent life.” Europe, said Amna Popovac, a candidate for the Ethnic Platform Party for Progress.
The nationalists now promise to fix the city’s many problems as if “the Martians and not them have ruled Mostar, out of control, for the past 12 years,” she added.
Miljan Rupar’s name will also be on the ballot. The 35-year-old, who is running as a candidate for the multiethnic Social Democratic Party, decided to get involved in politics after realizing that more than 38 friends and relatives, including his sister, had left Mostar “for good” in search of a better life abroad.
Rupar wants the city to focus on the future, as well as the international school where he teaches physics, the United World College branch in Mostar. The school is one of 17 in the world and is run by a movement founded in 1962 with the aim of overcoming the divisions of the Cold War, bringing highly successful young people from all corners to live and learn together.
“When I enter the classroom or attend our bi-weekly meeting and see students and teachers from around the world, including from different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share the same values and goals, it gives me hope,” he said. .
Political journalist Faruk Kajtaz, however, believes that hope could prove to be treacherous in the divided city, despite the justified dissatisfaction of local voters. He notes that not only Mostar, but all of Bosnia has long been politically and administratively fragmented along ethnic lines.
“Perhaps too much is expected of the people of Mostar,” he said. “(But) just the fact that the citizens of Mostar will eventually have a chance to vote for their local legislators is in itself a great gain for democracy.”
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Kemal Softic from Mostar, Bosnia, contributed to this report