SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (AP) – Irma Baralija looks forward to Sunday when she plans to vote and hopes to win her race as the southern Bosnia city of Mostar holds its first local elections in 12 years.
To enable that vote in her hometown, 36-year-old Baralija had to sue Bosnia at the European Court of Human Rights for causing a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties, causing her, along with about 100,000 other residents of Mostar, could not vote or participate in municipal elections for more than a decade.
By winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes she has “broken the myth (that nationalist parties) feed us, that an individual cannot move things forward, that we only matter as members of our ethnic groups. . ”
Parties representing only one ethnic group have dominated Bosnian politics since the end of the devastating war of 1992-95, in which the three main ethnic factions – Serbs, Croats and Muslims – compete after the break-up of Yugoslavia.
“I hope that my example will inspire Mostar’s citizens, when they vote on Sunday, to be brave, to realize that we as individuals can bring positive change,” said Baralija, who is running for a city council seat on the card. the small, multi-ethnic Our Party.
Divided between Muslim Bosniaks 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 declared its electoral rules discriminatory and ordered them to be changed.
The dominant nationalist Bosnian and Croatian political parties, the SDA and the HDZ respectively, have not reached an agreement on how to do that for more than a decade. Meanwhile, Mostar was run by a de facto acting mayor, Ljubo Beslic of HDZ, and his office, which also housed representatives from the SDA, with no local council to oversee their work or the allocation of nearly 230 million euros from the city treasury which them over the years.
Without fully functioning institutions, Mostar – one of the major tourist destinations of the impoverished Balkan country – has seen its infrastructure crumble, trash repeatedly piling up on the streets, and dumped hazardous waste and sludge for wastewater treatment in its only landfill, intended for no -hazardous waste.
An agreement between the two parties, ratified by the top European Union and US diplomats in Bosnia, was finally reached in June – eight months after the Strasbourg court ruled in favor of Baralija and gave Bosnia six months. to amend its electoral laws so that a vote can be held in Mostar.
Mostar is divided in two by the Neretva River. During the war, Croats moved west and Muslims moved east. Since the fighting ended, the city has two post offices, two electricity and water providers, two telephone networks, two public hospitals and more – a crumbling set for every ethnic group.
On Sunday, several small, multi-ethnic parties will compete for seats on the city council after campaigning on bread-and-butter issues. But the nationalist HDZ and SDA parties hope that they will secure a two-thirds majority on the council and keep a grip on power.
While they recognize that the nationalists have armies of loyal voters that they mobilize by fueling ethnic distrust, non-nationalist election candidates in Mostar hope that the past 12 years have shown that those two parties are too corrupt and incompetent.
“I think a lot of people finally realized that the abstract, ethnic interests are meaningless as their children (Mostar) are leaving en masse in search of decent jobs and a decent life” elsewhere in Europe, said Amna Popovac, a multi-ethnic candidate. Platform for Progress Party.
The nationalists now pledge to solve the city’s many problems as if “Martians and not they, out of control, have led Mostar for the past 12 years,” she added.
Miljan Rupar’s name will also be on the ballot. The 35-year-old, who is a candidate for the multi-ethnic 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 his city to be forward-looking, as does the international school where he teaches physics, the United World College in Mostar. The school is one of 17 worldwide and is run by a movement founded in 1962 with the aim of overcoming the divisions in the Cold War by bringing high-achieving young people from around the world to live and learn together.
“When I walk into class or attend our biweekly meeting and see students and teachers from all over the world, including from different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share the same values and goals, it gives hope,” he said. .
However, political journalist Faruk Kajtaz thinks hope could prove treacherous in the divided city, despite well-founded grievances from 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) the mere fact that Mostar citizens will finally get the chance to vote for their local legislators is in itself a great victory for democracy.”
___
Kemal Softic in Mostar, Bosnia contributed to this report