The local elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), held on October 6th, showed that the biggest winner in this “festival of democracy” is not a single candidate, but the general political apathy that reigns among the population in our country.
This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the fact that only 47.73 percent of citizens who are registered in the Central Voters’ List took part in the elections.
This is the lowest turnout rate for local elections recorded in the previous 20 years, ie since the 2004 campaign. At that time, 46.8 percent of BiH citizens went to the polls.
Of course, it should be taken into account that the figure of 3,400,204 voters registered in the Central Voter List is “inflated”, that is, the percentage of turnout is higher than 47 percent.
This does not change the fact that this is another election cycle where BiH has proven that it is not even close to the status of a healthy democracy, which it has been striving to be for almost three decades.
BiH is lagging behind Western countries, and for example, in those countries, turnout below 80 percent is seen as a failure, while more than half of the citizens of our country decided to stay at home and not take advantage of their opportunity to influence their environment.
All citizens are always more interested in general elections, where major races for the Presidency and parliaments are followed, but logic dictates that the interest should be much greater for the local level, which has a greater impact on the daily life of residents.
To make matters worse, a lot of funds were invested in educating the citizens of our country about election processes and the importance of going to the polls, either directly from the budgets of all levels of government in BiH, or from the European Union (EU) and the rest of the international community.
Unfortunately, it seems that every two years we get new proof that these funds are, for the most part, wasted.
A good number of citizens in BiH will use every opportunity to complain about the authorities and say that “they are not good at anything”, but they will not use their basic civil right to influence it.
It should be said that a large part of the citizens of BiH was affected, directly or indirectly, by the catastrophic floods that hit the municipalities of Konjic, Jablanica, Fojnica, Kresevo and Kiseljak. This should also be taken into account when we talk about the low turnout in these elections, especially considering that the floods occurred a few days before the elections.
However, the trend of declining turnout could be seen in recent years, and these elections could finally show that something must be done in terms of educating citizens about the importance of elections.
Of course, it is not realistic to have a complex political system, where even the most basic things require a broad consensus and work with persons and political subjects who do not always have the best interest of the state in mind, and at the same time,expect some euphoria among the citizens to go to the polls.
However, this is exactly the argument why residents should vote in local elections in greater numbers. With the exception of Mostar and a few other areas, in local elections citizens have the best chance to vote without thinking about the ethnic aspect of their choice.
The citizens of BiH have been in a kind of electoral apathy for 20 years, and this then opens the possibility that the elections are decided by the infrastructure of the parties and their ability to mobilize “their” voters on election day.
In other words, the point of the elections as they are currently taking place, and as they took place in the previous few cycles, is not to have the best program, but to “force” a greater number of “their” people to vote.
In such a system, political parties that do not stand behind their successes and programs succeed, and those who want to come to power do not have to work on their ideas and ideals, but on building party structures and “taking” from the ruling groups those groups that will definitely come out to the elections.
Citizens who do not come out remain on the sidelines , but it is realistic to say that they did not deserve anything better, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
