The protests held in front of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) are over. Part of the public believes that the original goal of the protest fell into the background and that the gathering was used to score political points.
In the beginning, there was the invitation to the gathering of both members of the opposition and the ruling party, which created the impression that they had found a common language. But already in the first minutes of the gathering, there was a twist. Pushing, verbal skirmishes, and then a war of communications. For citizens who fought against the domination of politics, unacceptable.
Precisely because of the circumstances in which the protests took place, those who deal with citizen activism believe that this was expected, but they do not consider the protests to be an absolutely failed act.
“Knowing our political culture, knowing that these people in the political parties led to the situation where all this is happening, you could have expected that something like this would happen, I honestly hoped it wouldn’t, but it happened… ,“ notes Darko Brkan from the Association of Citizens “Why not” (”Zasto ne”).
During the pre-election period, the parties do not choose the means to collect political points, only that they are the only ones who get the right end of the stick and the others get the shortend. And this time too, believes political commentator Ivana Maric.
“We know every time they gather, all Croatian, all Bosniak, all Serbian gatherings, the national parties profited every time, and the opposition got the short end of the stick,” adds Maric.
Although political advertising was present at the protests, the views point to the fact that the message to the high representative was still clearly sent, BHRT writes.
E.Dz.