Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is the absolute record holder in Europe in terms of the number of political parties. Their number has tripled in the last 26 years. It is justified to ask the question of whether politics is the most profitable business in the country, and why the race for leading positions has become so attractive.
One political party per 30.000 inhabitants. Everyone would like to be a leader, or at least try to fight for power, says a former member of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of BiH, Vehid Sehic. He adds that this has nothing to do with democracy and political pluralism, but with the fact that politics has long since become the most desirable, and more importantly, the highest paid profession in BiH.
”People say, and this is the rule, “Once an ambassador, always an ambassador,” here once a politician, once a president, minister, the prime minister – always a president, a minister,” Vehid Sehic, a former member of the CEC BiH said.
The same people, but a significantly larger number of political entities. Since all the traditional names have been taken, party names are becoming more and more creative.
As many as 31 political parties and coalitions want to have representatives in the future convocation of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska (NARS). There are 1.439 candidates on the lists who will seek their chance in the elections, and only 83 seats are available. The seats make it easier to get to workplaces in public institutions and companies.
Communication specialist Mladen Bubonjic says that there is an imposed atmosphere that in our country there is no life without politics.
”As the number of parties on this, conditionally speaking, opposition spectrum increases, we can suspect that these parties and these politicians cannot bring a significant percentage of votes to themselves, but they can steal votes from well-established, established opposition structures and thus only contribute to the government.”
It is an open secret that electoral committees are the wound of technical changes to the electoral law. The purchase of electoral committees is repeated every election cycle and has nothing to do with participation in the democratic election process, is the opinion of political analyst Denis Carkadzic.
”Three percent for the entity level, and especially the state level, is an absolutely unattainable threshold for 90% of them when you take the total number. The problem with electoral committees – just look at the number of candidates for president and vice president of RS and everything will be clear to you.”
And there are 31 names on that list. For the upcoming elections, the CEC has certified 90 political parties, 17 independent candidates, and 38 coalitions. 22 parties and 2 coalitions more than during the 2014-2018 election period. It is much easier for political parties to survive than for private companies, because they are financed with public money, and it is also easier to establish them – more than 335 million BAM have been allocated from the budget at all levels from 2004 to today, BHRT writes.
E.Dz.
