The paralysis of institutions caused by systemic political corruption managed by the highest public officials has brought Bosnia and Herzegovina into a state of complete political, social and economic blockade. This state, which some call state capture, although caused by corruption, is actually rooted in a specific set of circumstances that can be grouped into three categories:
- problems related to the electoral process,
- effects of inefficient judiciary, and
- divisions between the messages sent and actions taken by representatives of the international community in BiH.
Let us explain in order.
Elections
Election monitoring in BiH that Transparency International in BiH has been conducting for several cycles shows, empirically and phenomenologically, the extent and scope of the problem we are discussing. Just before the General Elections 2022, a quantity of irregularities was recorded and documented that delegitimizes not only the election results but also the very meaning of the electoral process within such rules.
Some examples:
- 76 percent of public events organized or paid for by public institutions in the observed period were occasions for candidates to appear in elections and address the public, that is, some form of political promotion.
- 300 million KM is the value of various types of “one-time assistance” that citizens received from authorities in the period immediately before elections, which is a euphemism for vote buying.
- 334 cases of ceremonial opening of public works that were completed were recorded, as well as almost the same number of works whose beginning was scheduled for the period before elections. The values of these public works used for promotion exceed one billion convertible marks.
- Parties reported in their reports that campaign costs were reduced by almost 2 million KM compared to TI BiH’s estimate.
All observed irregularities that we have just summarized, which you can investigate in more detail here, TI BiH documented, supported with material evidence and reported to CEC, in accordance with what the laws governing this area require. CEC, also operating within the framework of laws and regulations that regulate its area of competence, based on TI-BiH reports, imposed penalties against political parties and their candidates with a total value of 112,000.00 KM.
That is the penalty paid by all parties for violating the rules of the game in which the winner receives as a prize the management of everything BiH has at its disposal for a period of 4 years. 4 years of RS, FBiH, District and BiH budgets for the price of a 30-square-meter studio apartment in Banja Luka.
Judiciary
That the judiciary is shaken to its very foundation and that it is the source of a large number of systemic problems that BiH faces is no longer a controversial statement. The judiciary is inefficient, non-transparent and, despite the fact that BiH is one of the countries with the highest level of corruption in Europe, it mainly deals with petty corruption cases and lower-ranking officials, while many major corruption scandals have remained unanswered.
Dismissals and disciplinary proceedings at the very top of judicial bodies, the process of appointing the chief prosecutor that calls into question the integrity of the judiciary, and recordings of holders of the highest functions that compromise their credibility in the eyes of the public, indicate that the crisis in which the judiciary in BiH finds itself can only be cured by radical measures.
Such measures presuppose a complete overhaul of this branch of government with the obligation of thorough verification of every future holder of judicial function.
International community
Transparency International in BiH published an analysis of reform implementation for obtaining candidate status for EU membership which shows that BiH managed to fulfill only one of 14 priorities for candidate status for EU membership in four years. More precisely, we managed to form the Parliamentary Committee for Stabilization and Association, that is, another commission.
In the meantime, the state of corruption and rule of law has dramatically worsened, for which, counterintuitively, those who are directly responsible – holders of power at all levels in BiH in recent years – have been rewarded with official confirmation of candidate status for EU membership.
In this we were also affected by the imposition of Electoral Law amendments by the High Representative, which TI BiH also condemned as a violation of the basic principle that regulations affecting the conduct of elections should not be changed after they have been called.
Such and similar actions, characterized by neglecting democratic procedures, public debate and participation of relevant institutions in creating important solutions by the High Representative, not only are not helpful, but also have a negative effect. They encourage the habit of political irresponsibility, leaving political actors – who came to positions of power through abuse of public resources and with the help of an electoral process of compromised legitimacy – with all the benefits of public office and resources of a captured state without any mechanism of political, criminal or even moral responsibility.
The desire of political elites in the country is obviously to maintain the current situation while the approach of international community representatives regarding this issue has many times led to rewarding those who block reforms, rule of law and basic civil liberties.
But that is not all.
Deterioration as the only continuity.
For all the mentioned assessments, confirmations can be found in data and research results that TI BiH has been conducting for years, and which say the same thing: corruption has become the primary reason for the existence of institutions and a kind of symbiosis of organized crime, political elites and state institutions represents the official, assumed state of affairs.
All this is confirmed by this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) research which shows that BiH is the third most corrupt country in Europe, behind only war-affected Ukraine and Russia. In addition to recording one of the worst results in Europe and by far the worst result of all countries in the region, BiH achieved the worst result since 2012 in 2022, which unambiguously shows a continuous decline in BiH authorities’ efforts to effectively fight corruption.
A pessimistic view of the future was directed by the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik who announced that a defamation law will soon be adopted which, allegedly, will not be directed against the media, but towards those who spread falsehoods on social networks. The idea of re-
Having all this in mind, the question is, what can we do to fix this?
Our solutions
TI BiH, monitoring the application of electoral legislation, election campaigns and behavior of political parties regarding financing and reporting, has often asked itself this question and has offered several key proposals for improving the legal framework and integrity of the electoral process.
These proposals concern basic problems, such as:
- The problem of incompatibility, that is, clearer definition of conflicts of interest, introduction of substitute mandate and more precise definition of situations that entail the obligation to resign from office;
- The problem of work of electoral boards and MECs, which concerns depoliticization of electoral boards and achieving a greater degree of transparency of the very process of their formation;
- Prohibition of paid advertising by public bodies and institutions in the pre-election period, with clear separation of public from party function and prohibition of use of cars, helicopters and similar;
- Introduction of restrictions on employment in the public sector, limitation of budget spending before elections and introduction of stronger control mechanisms;
- More detailed definition of situations that describe vote buying and exerting pressure on voters.
All of the above represents TI BiH’s advocacy package that is closely related to elections and the process of political power distribution. Although critically important but fundamentally deficient, this area is only one aspect of the multitude of problems that BiH, as a country in a permanent state of institutional captivity, faces.
However, since systemic shortcomings cannot be solved by partial solutions (that is, they can, but with results we live with every day), a broader scope of measures and actions is necessary to make meaningful and significant progress.
Broader agenda
As part of efforts to offer a different approach to solving major challenges and reduce opportunities for corruption in BiH, TI BiH has compiled the document “Good Governance Agenda 2025”.
Covering a much broader spectrum of problems and possible solutions, this document represents a form of holistic approach in identifying the most important guidelines for reforms, through:
- public administration reform and its reduction, rationalization and depoliticization,
- centralization of the public procurement system,
- introduction of mandatory voting and internal democratization of political parties, and
- introduction of vetting procedures in the judiciary, which provide for procedures to verify assets, competencies and connections of holders of judicial functions with organized crime.
While you read more about Agenda 2025 where all these proposals are developed to the level where their implementation is a matter of operational nature, think about the following: are new laws and procedures sufficient?
This question is of vital importance because laws in our country are increasingly just justification for someone’s behavior instead of guidelines for how one should act. In other words, laws no longer serve as behavioral norms, but as legitimization for arbitrariness.
This is particularly evident in the already mentioned announcements of criminal law amendments that return defamation as a criminal offense, although the professional public is unanimously against such harmful and counterproductive changes. For those who want to apply these amendments as soon as possible, obviously, such professional opinions mean nothing. And therefore neither do laws.
When we accept this, we will see that the answers presented in this text are adequate, but suffer from one significant problem: they relate to a question that is naive in its inception, and therefore wrong. Instead of asking what we can do to improve electoral law, judiciary and international community action, we need, first of all, to question the very meaning of improvement.
Are, I repeat, new laws and procedures sufficient? Or is it necessary to change something else, more important, something that is closer to the very source of all these problems?
The address for sending answers to this question can be found in the central voter register.
