Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06SARAJEVO1916
2006-08-21 11:14:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Sarajevo
Cable title:  

BOSNIAN ELECTIONS - THIS TIME THEY COUNT

Tags:  PGOV PREL PINR BK 
pdf how-to read a cable
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O 211114Z AUG 06 *****CORRECTED COPY******
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4233
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
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RUFOAOA/USNIC SARAJEVO
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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

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