Democracy under Attack: 34 Years of Independent Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author: Benjamin Ahmedbegović
There is a country in Europe where democracy is under attack. It is an independent, sovereign nation whose independence and sovereignty are questioned from within. Its regime is a consociational democracy born under the conditions of war and heavy foreign intervention. The constitution of this state was originally written in the English language instead of its own. This country is Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as we celebrate the 34th year of its independence, we cannot forget that each and every citizen, for the 34th time in a row, is bestowed with the duty to defend our democracy, this time not from an aggressor, but from itself. This essay argues that Bosnia and Herzegovina faces a form of ethnic electoral disenfranchisement rooted not in direct repression, but in structural features of its consociational political system that generate minority political apathy.
Under the guidance of the reconciliatory activist and educational NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights Bosnia and Herzegovina (YIHR BiH), I had the opportunity to visit and speak with the inhabitants of certain regions of BiH characterized by the term povratnici. In the Bosnian language, this word refers to people who inhabited particular territories and, due to various reasons caused by the war in the 1990s, left their homes and returned later, after the war. The experience provided me with valuable knowledge but simultaneously led me to question the core principles of democracy in returnee societies, motivated mainly by an almost unanimous answer from minority groups within entity polities, a resounding refusal to vote. This refusal does not stem from legal exclusion, but from perceived political inefficacy. It appears that there is an open front in our battle for democracy, and this time it is called ethnic disenfranchisement.
Although democracy cannot be reduced to a single indicator, one structural signal of its health is whether citizens choose to participate in elections when given the opportunity. Voter turnout does not, in itself, determine whether a system is democratic. Yet when a significant segment of the population consciously refuses to vote because participation is perceived as meaningless, this raises concerns about democratic legitimacy and electoral integrity. In the case of returnee communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, such patterns invite closer examination.
It is difficult to extract precise empirical conclusions here due to a lack of statistical data pertaining to vote distribution among ethnicities in particular entities. The aspiration to answer the question of voting behaviour of minorities in local elections within their residential entities is a necessary one, albeit beyond the scope of this essay. I will instead narrow down this analysis to perceptions, those of myself and of people belonging to minority categories within the entity context and, more specifically, based on my field experience, Bosniaks in Republika Srpska (RS).
Bosniaks in RS have a perceived tendency not to participate in local elections, with a commonly stated belief that the Bosniak vote does not matter and is only a drop in a sea controlled by Serbs. Furthermore, the expression “choosing between two evils” is also common, reflecting the view that the Bosniak population in RS has very little trust in Serb politicians to respect the interests of Bosniaks and protect their rights equally. An additional point of interest is that voting for “my own” has been a well-established concept in the political culture of BiH. The idea is that in a country divided along ethnic lines, as a member of a particular ethnicity, one can only vote for those who share the same ethnic label. This can sometimes lead to a very unclear and uninformed method of choosing political candidates, where quality, knowledge, experience, and overall merit are subordinated to ethnic belonging. Taken together, these observations lead us to where we are today: a political system that appears to systematically reinforce democratic backsliding wherever minorities exist within majoritarian societies.
If we try to provide a definition of disenfranchisement itself, academics will most commonly point to words such as restriction, removal of rights, discrimination, inequality, etc. In the case of ethnic electoral disenfranchisement, this means that someone or something is preventing a certain ethnic group from exercising its voting rights. Here is where we must proceed with caution and where I express an accusatory outlook. My accusation, however, is not that it is someone, but rather that it is something that is causing this prevention. The Serbs in RS are not preventing Bosniaks from voting, nor are the Bosniaks preventing the Serbs. The people I met in the villages around Zvornik and Srebrenica during my research trips with YIHR do not express any concern or accusation pertaining to being prevented or threatened from voting by someone. They do, however, point to the structural features of our democracy working against them, leading to political apathy and refusal to vote.
It appears that the political philosophy behind the constitution of BiH, consociationalism, has produced an anti-citizen legacy. While consociationalism was designed to prevent ethnic domination at the state level, it has unintentionally entrenched majoritarian dynamics within entity-level politics, where minorities experience structural marginalization. If ethnic elites are the ones pulling the levers of power, and citizens are being used as political resources to meet the narrow individual interests of those elites, then it is natural to question the role of civil society. My accusation, therefore, lies in the “something,” and that something is the political system of BiH. I strongly advocate for the leaders of our country to put in place mechanisms to prevent ethnic electoral disenfranchisement, mainly in the form of raising awareness of one key point: that in BiH, we should not worry about who is Bosniak and who is Serb, but instead realize that in order to be the best Bosniak and the best Serb and ultimately the best citizen we must fight for and realize our democratic rights. Minorities across BiH deserve recognition and empowerment and a strong message from the state that their vote matters. We must vote, put the labels aside, and pick up the ballot paper. This is the message we need to hear from our politicians of all ethnicities, directed toward all ethnicities.
For networks such as SNFD, committed to strengthening democratic culture across diverse political systems, the Bosnian case illustrates how democracy must be defended not only against authoritarian threats, but also against structural disempowerment from within.