BOSNIA: CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: STRATEGY FOR THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 000994 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR D (SMITH),P (BAME),EUR (DICARLO),EUR/SCE (ENGLISH, SAINZ, FOOKS),NSC FOR BRAUN, USNIC FOR WEBER, GREGORIAN E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/05/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL BK SUBJECT: BOSNIA: CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: STRATEGY FOR THE COMING PERIOD REF: A. A) SARAJEVO 937 B) SARAJEVO 954 ¶B. C) SARAJEVO 966 Classified By: AMBASSADOR DOUGLAS L. MCELHANEY. REASONS: 1.4 (B) (D) ¶1. (C) With the heat abating somewhat from last week's failure by the BiH parliament to pass constitutional amendments, we are looking ahead to next steps. Bosnia's political parties are now in full electoral battle mode; yesterday the BiH Electoral Commission announced national elections will be held on October 1. (Note: This puts to rest rumored plans by the BHEC to delay the elections a further four weeks for technical reasons.) Five months of frenzied campaigning now loom -- and there will be scores to be settled over the setback dealt by the motley anti-reform coalition in the BiH Parliament to Bosnia's first effort at amending the Dayton constitution. ¶2. (C) The math we faced in the House of Representatives on April 27 -- 26 for, 16 against -- is unlikely to change in this heated electoral season, precisely because the "no" voters had a tight commonality of interest in using the constitutional amendment package as a vehicle to raise their individually insignificant profiles. The Party for BiH (SBiH) and the right-wing breakaway element of HDZ, now known as the "HDZ 1990," reportedly used bribes, as well as the power of the Croat Catholic hierarchy, in a scorched-earth effort to defeat the amendments and buy themselves enormous press coverage. They will continue to dine out on this "victory," and in so doing, will also continue to inundate the public with wartime-era rhetoric. The message is unrelentingly negative and, unfortunately, does find some resonance with the frustrated, politically alienated electorate of Bosnia -- thus our concern in reftels not to inadvertently provide the anti-reform forces a platform by continuing to push forward the constitutional package at this sensitive moment. Maintaining Momentum Among the Pro-Reform Parties in the Election Period ¶3. (C) We will be looking in this next period to substantially dilute the rejectionists' negative rhetoric via active public diplomacy, both through our own messages and in tandem with our European and international partners, who were as keenly disappointed as we (albeit less involved) at last week's setback. Our theme will be straightforward: Bosnia faces a clear choice, one road that leads towards Europe and NATO and one that leads nowhere. The parties that rejected constitutional change are headed down the wrong path; more to the point, they offer no convincing alternative. ¶4. (C) Just as important, we will also look to re-energize the party leaders who had staked themselves on the issue of constitutional reform for most of the past year. The personal and party relationships they developed through the process of negotiation and compromise on constititional reform are, in many ways, unnatural -- or at least not entirely a comfortable fit, given the past 15 years of this country's history. However, both for the stability of BiH as well as for the more immediate prospect of re-introducing the constitutional amendments package into Parliament, it will be critical to use our good offices to keep these newly-developed relations in good repair. The strains of this particular electoral season, and the harsh rhetoric that SBiH and HDZ 1990 have used to attack their Bosniak and Croat opposite numbers during the reform debate, have the potential to boomerang nastily by encouraging even the pro-reform parties to hew to the right, as they seek to prove to their voters that they have been "tough enough" on Bosnian Serbs -- the logical whipping boy in Federation political circles. ¶5. (C) Ambassador plans to call the six party leaders together during the week of May 17, upon his return from Washington, to compare notes and encourage them to plan actively for resuming the effort at constitutional reform immediately after the elections. Ambassador saw Tri-Presidency Chairman Tihic May 5 as preparation for that larger meeting. Tihic has spent the past week ruminating on how he or we might resuscitate the package. However, with the Election Commission's announcement of Oct. 1 elections, the legal window is closed for amendments that would take effect with this year's elections. Of equal importance, the group that Tihic has openly pondered approaching -- the HDZ 1990 crowd -- has proven clearly to us that its demands SARAJEVO 00000994 002 OF 002 vis-a-vis "protection of Croat interests" in a future constitutional context cross our redlines, as well as the those of the Europeans. The HDZ 1990 demands -- a full ethnic veto over all legislation -- are retrogressive even in terms of the present imperfections of the Dayton constitution. Moreover, the HDZ 1990's leaders have pulled the Croat Catholic hierarchy overtly into the party's political fight with the main HDZ, using the constitutional reform package as a vehicle for their internecine battle. The Church's attacks on the reform effort, and on the U.S. for its leadership of the process, have become increasingly shrill (septel),and do not bode well for any prospects of moderating the HDZ 1990's stance. Institutionalizing the Constitutional Reform Process ¶6. (C) In the longer term, we need to begin to flesh out our plans for institutionalizing a constitutional reform effort that has both the necessary technical expertise and political horsepower. We would envision a constitutional reform commission under U.S. leadership, akin to the highly successful defense reform commission, with a technical secretariat housed at OSCE or another organization with the SIPDIS credentials and resources to provide the needed logistical support. European buy-in, both in the form of funding and symbolic participation, would help us maintain the goodwill we have thus far had from the local European missions and from Brussels. This will take some diplomatic footwork, however, since the High Representative has demonstrated a newly discovered determination to usurp the constitutional reform process and give OHR a preeminent role -- a development that would only artificially prolong OHR's lifespan and launch, in our estimation, another "process" with no real start or endpoint. ¶7. (C) In short, we can use the months ahead of us to bolster the parties that proved willing to engage in meaningful discussion and compromise; to calm the political waters roiled by the shrill, rejectionist message of hardline Bosniaks and Croats throughout this debate; and to design a durable methodology for constitutional reform that can weather the vagaries of the Bosnian (and international) political scene. The U.S. role in all this will be critical, given the drift among the Europeans and the trust that the Bosnians continue to show in our leadership. MCELHANEY