BOSNIAN ELECTIONS - THIS TIME THEY COUNT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 001916 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR (DICARLO),EUR/SCE, P (BAME); NSC FOR BRAUN; OSD FOR FLORY E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/01/2011 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR BK SUBJECT: BOSNIAN ELECTIONS - THIS TIME THEY COUNT REF: SARAJEVO 1891 SARAJEVO 00001916 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Ambassador Douglas McElhaney. Reason 1.4(b) and (d). ************C O R R E C T E D C O P Y**********CORRECTED TAGS ¶1. (U) This is the second in a planned series of election-related telegrams. ¶2. (C) SUMMARY: Since 1996, Bosnia has been generally successful in forging a democratic process under close supervision of the international community. However, this year's elections, in our judgment, the country's most important since Dayton, will constitute a watershed in Bosnia's history. With the planned departure of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in summer 2007, the politicians elected on October 1 will be solely responsible for charting Bosnia's path towards Euro-Atlantic integration. The political rhetoric to date is not encouraging. Politicians from all three ethnic groups have campaigned by appealing to their nationalist base rather than by focusing on the issues important to Bosnia's future. Developments outside Bosnia, including Montenegrin independence and the future status of Kosovo, have only fueled nationalist flames. As donor fatigue mounts, and with the foreign policy attention of the EU and the international community increasingly diverted elsewhere, it is not at all clear that candidates and the electorate are willing to move beyond historical grievances to act as stakeholders in a cohesive political system and to chart a course towards EU integration. END SUMMARY These Elections Matter, But Do The Bosnians Get It? -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) Integrating Bosnia into Euro-Atlantic institutions is critical to our goal of building a Europe that is whole, free, prosperous and at peace. Decisions later this year by NATO on Bosnian participation in PfP and by the EU on signing a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Bosnia will be crucial in determining the course of Bosnia's future over the next decade. However, while decisions in Brussels have the potential to offer Bosnia a much clearer prospect for a Euro-Atlantic future, the outcome of Bosnia's October 1 national elections will determine whether Bosnia is capable of embracing and moving energetically towards that future over the next four years or whether it remains mired in the conflicts of the past. In our view this makes Bosnia's 2006 elections the most important since the first post-war elections of 1996. ¶4. (C) In June 2007, the Office of the High Representative (OHR) will almost certainly close its doors. Though an-EU Special Representative (EUSR) will replace OHR, the international community will no longer have the authority to remove obstructionist politicians from office or to draft or impose legislation. The EU will not agree to assume such powers. For the first time since 1991, the politicians elected by the citizens of BiH will have sole responsibility for running the country. Voters will no longer be able to use the polls to express residual ethnic tensions confident that the international community will step in to correct the worst excesses of Bosnia's nationalist politicians. ¶5. (C) The electorate does not yet grasp that change is coming. A recent internal OHR poll shared with Embassy shows that 62 percent of those in Republika Srpska (RS) and 68.5 percent in the Federation (FBiH) believe OHR will continue to impose legislation and remove politicians following the October elections. Over half of poll respondents nationwide answered "no" when asked if they believe OHR will close next year. The prevalence of these views along with voter apathy (experts predict turnout to drop from 2002's 51 percent) encourages politicians to rely on nationalist rhetoric to mobilize the base of their primarily ethnically-based parties. Look Back in Anger -------------- ¶6. (C) As a consequence, Bosnia's politicians are focused on the country's past, not its future, despite efforts by the U.S. and the international community to encourage issue-based campaigning. Bosniak parties remain locked in a public competition over who can take the hardest line on the Republika Srpska's (RS) continued existence, and over whose SARAJEVO 00001916 002.2 OF 002 *********C O R R E C T E D C O P Y********CORRECTED TAGS leaders are better Muslims. Serb parties are debating who will best defend an enduring RS in the face of reforms, particularly police reform, required to integrate Bosnia into Euro-Atlantic and European institutions. Though they generate fewer headlines, the Croats are also playing to parochial interests with some politicians clinging to demands for a third (Croat) entity. ¶7. (C) While it would be unrealistic to expect an election campaign free of nationalist rhetoric, the level of political invective to date is more heated than many local observers expected. Campaign rhetoric threatens to create barriers between politicians that will be unbridgeable after elections. With most critical reforms stalled, such divisions would jeopardize the compromises that will be necessary to get reforms moving again. This prospect has prompted public and private calls for restraint from the international community, but to date Bosnia's politicians have not responded positively. External Factors Are Not Helping -------------- ¶8. (C) Events outside Bosnia are also shaping the domestic political environment in unhelpful ways by fueling debate about Bosnia's future that is antithetical to the country's integration into Euro-Atlantic and European institutions. With passions already inflamed over the failure of constitutional reform, Montenegro's vote for independence has prompted speculation among Serb politicians about a similar referendum in the RS. Hanging over the fall election campaign is the mid-autumn deadline for concluding negotiations on a status package for Kosovo. It is unlikely Bosnian politicians will resist the temptation for political mischief presented by the specter of Kosovo independence portending a vicious cycle of nationalist rhetoric over Kosovo just before voters head to the polls. Some local politicians in Sarajevo are now saying openly that Bosnian Serb rhetoric that places the BiH state in question has been planned by Banja Luka with the connivance of Serbian PM Kostunica. Although we have no information to suggest that is true, we note that Kostunica and RS PM Dodik met recently to discuss "border issues", which are the responsibility of the Bosnian State. What Does this Mean for the U.S. -------------- ¶9. (C) It has always been difficult to get Bosnia's politicians to do the right thing, but the course of the 2006 election campaign suggests Bosnia's course after summer 2007 may be characterized by more setbacks than the international community had hoped. We are not suggesting that Bosnia will fall apart, but we do believe that we will likely need to press hard between October 2006 and June 2007 to lock in key reforms that will allow Bosnia to weather the likely internal political storms. These include constitutional reform and the reforms required by the EU to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement (i.e., police reform, public broadcasting, and ICTY cooperation). Ironically, the EU is not pushing their reforms as one might expect. The signs of "enlargement fatigue" are evident in the absence of European political will to take hard actions to bring a successful conclusion to the SAA agreement. The U.S. and the international community will retain considerable, albeit diminishing, leverage over Bosnia's political course for the next 10 months. We need to use it to ensure that Bosnia holds together as a functioning democracy and remains firmly on the path to Euro-Atlantic and European integration. CEFKIN