Our people is intelligent. They've seen how things had been solved recently, who was supported by the omnipotent international community. It has been suggested to the voters from all sides, except for a small part of opposition supporters to organize along ethnic lines and vote for only one party, and they realized what they were supposed to do. Consequently, three national parties, SDA [leading Bosnian Muslim party], SDS [leading Bosnian Serb party] and HDZ [leading Bosnian Croat party], received the largest number of votes.
The whole process went without a glitch: everyone kept to the previously written script. There was a little bit of excitement about some lass important matters, just enough to make the election somewhat interesting.
Presidential Thriller: We witnessed a veritable small thriller in the contest for the three places in the new Bosnian presidency. True, Izetbegovic, Krajisnik and Zubak had no problems to win the majority of votes, each in his own ethnic community, but this part of the elections suddenly became immensely important because of the race for the Chairman of the Presidency, who will represent Bosnia until 1998. For Bosniaks and other citizens of Bosnia- Hercegovina who had a role of victims during the war, this was the most important contest; fortunately, Izetbegovic again became "first among equals".
The excitement would have been even greater if the voters knew before the election that the first presidential mandate would not last 8 months as they were led to believe. If they did know, we are certain that a run-off between Izetbegovic, Zubak and Krajisnik would have been necessary, since each one of them would have won 99,99% of votes. People would have gathered behind their national representative in proportions much higher than recorded anywhere else in the democratic world. Each nation would have done that because of its specific reasons: Bosniaks because it would have been humiliating for them to have either Krajisnik or Zubak as a president. The former one because he owes the worst possible debt to the Bosniaks - debt of blood. Zubak, because as a Federation president he clearly demonstrated that he was incapable to represent all people living on the Federation territory.
The promotion of Krajisnik for the President of Presidency was important for the Serbs from the [Serb] entity as a way to mock the idea of the common state and common government and turn the tragedy which they had produced into a farce in which they would be the ones with the last laugh. Croats homogenized around Zubak (and they would have done it in even greater numbers if they knew that the two year mandate was up for grabs) in order to paralyse the most important potentials of Bosnia-Hercegovina through this former inhabitant of Doboj.
Mandate as a Favor: Someone deceived all of us in the race for the Presidency members. We believe that in a rotating presidency (three times 8 months) it wouldn't matter who was first and who last in the line for the top post. International Community Representatives, as the interpreters of the Dayton Agreement, on numerous occasions prior to the election clearly stated that the first mandate would be divided in three parts. For example this was stated by Holbrooke, Bildt, Kornblum and even domestic participants in the Dayton negotiations. They misled the voters and the candidates as well. It seems that the decision about the two year mandate was brought ad hoc, once Frowick and his staff knew the election results.
With this decision, which was most likely not made in Dayton in November 1995, but in Sarajevo, in September 1996, the international community finally did a favor to the Bosniak people and its political representatives. It is possible that the compliance of Croats and Serbs was paid by undisclosed concessions, but that is not necessarily the case. Still, it is significant that Krajisnik and Zubak have no objections regarding the sudden threefold increase in the duration of the first Presidential mandate.
There will be more battles about the Presidency, but that's a different story which doesn't have much to do with the elections.
Liberal Fiasco: These elections are also interesting because of the debacle of the opposition parties in the Federation, although the results of the opposition parties in the Serb entity are also rather unimpressive. The opposition fared the worst in the Croat para-state but, on the other hand, it could be considered a success that the opposition parties ran in Herceg-Bosna since until recently there was no opposition on that territory. Hence the assertion about the failure mostly concernes the opposition parties based in Sarajevo.
Within that circle only the United List has been successful, actually SDP and UBSD as the strongest parties in that coalition. They will be represented at almost all levels of legislative authority, in some instances with a highly respectable number of deputies: for example in the federal parliament they will have about 10 deputies. This coalition has done well having in mind their rather confused program which was the result of a coalition of parties with significantly different political orientation. The succour came in the guise of well known, and well respected personalities who, via the United List for Bosnia-Hercegovina, managed to break through to the places where decisions will be made in the future.
Liberal parties from Sarajevo and the territory under the control of the Bosnian Army were the greatest losers in these elections. Both Rasim Kadic [Liberal Party] and Dr. Muhamed Filipovic [Muslim Bosniak Organization] ignominiously failed in these elections. Tiny percentage of votes won in the September elections can endanger their chances of running in the next elections (although they are hoping for a victory in 1998!) Rasim Kadic and his political team should carefully analyse the reasons for their failure, and the public should regret that a politician of Kadic's stature will not serve in the Parliament.
The results of Silajdzic's Party for Bosnia-Hercegovina can also be characterized as a failure. It turned out that it was not even close to competing with SDA as had been planned at its founding. In the national corner of the Bosniak heart there's only enough space for one party and one leader. On the other hand, Silajdzic didn't succeed in spreading his support among the members of other nationalities who, besides love for their nation, carry in their heart love for their homeland, Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Something strange happened with Silajdzic and his party. They led a very shy election campaign, and demonstrated a fear of direct political competition against SDA. Even Silajdzic, in his race against "the father of the nation", didn't try to use any one of the advantages he had. Still, he didn't pull out of the campaign and stayed in the race until the end; then, he was probably relieved that he hadn't taken enough votes from Izetbegovic to allow Krajisnik or Zubak to win the post of the Chairman of the Presidency.
The Party for Bosnia-Hercegovina has gone through a debacle, but that does not mean the end of Silajdzic's political career. SDA and Izetbegovic will probably find an important post for Silajdzic in the Federation government or in the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina. For now, Izetbegovic and Silajdzic were photographed together after the announcement of the official election results.
Fiasco of Spahic's citizens, Omersoftic's women, Halilovic's patriots and the Party of Economic Prosperity also contributed to the impoverishment of the political scene in Sarajevo. The Party of Economic Prosperity (SPP) had claimed before the elections some hundred thousand members who, it turned out, didn't vote for their party. Actually, now it is obvious that this was a lie of SPP leadership. Had these alleged hundred thousand members voted for SPP, it would have been the second largest party in the Federation, immediately behind SDA.
The results of the September election bring us back to 1990. It is not hard to agree with president Izetbegovic that the circumstances are different. The sum of same components is not always the same, especially if the two summations are separated by six bloody years. Therefore, there doesn't have to be another war. Unfortunately, with such nationalist political teams, especially Serb and Croat ones, one can not hope for peace and comfortable living.
Translated on 10/18/96