By Zenon Marković:
In a couple of months the citizens of B&H will go out to the polls and choose the new representatives and authorities. There are huge challenges with which the country is facing: mass unemployment, plummeting life standard, a low level of employment investments and an on-going presence of crime and corruption – it is noted in yesterday’s statement of OHR.
And, on top of that, millions of citizens are now facing with the consequence of the recent flooding.
Sadly some politicians and political parties have skillfully managed to avoid talking about what they have done or what they will do in order to solve the problems at hand, and instead they chose to distort the discussion by creating tensions and by spreading fear.
Disagreements on national monuments and cases of welcoming convicted war criminals in recent times have been in the focus of public attention. A number of cases of vandalism have been recorded that were committed on religious buildings, and there were reports of physical assaults on citizens who are of another ethnic background, including attacks on children. Each politician, each religious leader, each public official must absolutely state that the isolation of people of different ethnicities and intolerance against them is unacceptable at any moment. – OHR emphasizes.
Those who promote or participate in efforts that people of different ethnicities be excluded from the society and those who take up the stance of intolerance are putting themselves outside the frame of the political system, and in some cases outside the law.
OHR considers that these procedures should be treated adequately.
The floods have yet again shown that the citizens of Bosnia & Herzegovina aren’t living in the past, as opposed to what some leaders would want, but are willing to help each other in the hardest of times, regardless of their national affiliations or place of birth. Some of the members of the political elite used this crisis as another opportunity to show their disconnection, inertia, incompetence and irrelevance with which they have poisoned the country enough already. Although these politicians are very quick to engage in mutual criticism or in stating that the institutional dysfunction is the cause for problems in B&H, they forget to mention that their own political parties are or, at some point, were a part of the same governing coalitions which they now accuse of being unsuccessful. – notes OHR.
The citizens of B&H have clearly said that the October elections should be different. The citizens of B&H need solutions, and not mutual accusations. The citizens want a consensus, and not divisions. The citizens want a public debate that will focus on the issues that they are now facing and they will absolutely not be pleased with any rhetoric, especially negative rhetoric, as an excuse for failure or as a substitute for practical moves, stated OHR.
It is time for a discussion on concrete political proposals having in mind the future development of this country, and not for further attempting of focusing on the past. – OHR noted in yesterday’s statement.
