In the past months, as an indispensable part of the “pre-election” campaign, a large number of political subjects, who have registered as candidates in the upcoming elections, traveled around the world trying to animate the diaspora to vote.
This particularly referred to the diaspora from the Republika Srpska (RS), and to the claims of certain pro-Bosnian politicians that they successfully lobbied outside the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), animating primarily the Bosniak diaspora, and that they achieved that the number of registered voters from that entity was higher than in the last elections in 2018.
Simple math
However, yesterday it was announced how many citizens abroad registered to vote in the upcoming general elections in BiH. The final total number is 69.872, which is classified by municipalities and cities in the table.
With simple math, it is possible to verify claims about successful lobbying, so when we add up the number of registered voters from the municipalities located in the RS entity, we get a figure of approximately 24.000 voters from this entity.
When this number is compared with that of the 2018 General Election, we come to the conclusion that this year’s lobbying, not that it was not successful, but we can safely say that it failed.
Namely, in the General Elections of 2018 in the territory of the RS entity, 25.914 citizens voted by mail for the level of the National Assembly of the RS (NARS). Of these, 8.134 voters voted for the “Together for BiH” (Zajedno za BiH) and “Pro-European Bloc”.
The numbers don’t lie
Given that the numbers don’t lie, we can conclude that this year that number is lower and that talk about lobbying in the diaspora doesn’t make sense.
It is not difficult to guess what is the reason for the continuous decrease in the number of voters from the diaspora. Politicians, in general, “remember” the diaspora only on the eve of elections, like other BiH citizens as well who live in their homeland.
It is noticeable that the interest of the new generations who were born outside the borders of BiH in political processes in their homeland is decreasing, and who can blame them for that? For them, coming to BiH has, in most cases, become an annual vacation where they will have a good time in a destination that has long since become exotic to them.
This is supported by the information that 1.354 citizens of BiH renounced their BiH citizenship this year alone. As already said – numbers don’t lie. Lobbying does not help, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
