Six female mayors from both of Bosnia’s semi-autonomous entities have met this week to discuss projects that would help their communities, and one of them, Amra Babic, spoke to N1 about female engagement in Bosnian politics.
Municipal mayors are not engaged in classical politics but are “more working for the interests of the citizens, and we are looking for ways to implement those interests as good as we can. That is how the cooperation came about,” she said.
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“There is six of us female mayors in the country, one in FBiH and five in the RS,” Babic said, referring to Bosnia's Federation entity and the Republika Srpska entity.
“Support for women in politics is frequently talked about, while we have four municipalities where there are no female representatives,” she explained, pointing out that foreign ambassadors serving in Bosnia have frequently been emphasising that the position of women should be improved in society.
“We came to a series of conclusions and agreed with certain ambassadors to send a letter of intent to the Council of Europe regarding support for women in politics in Bosnia,” Babic said.
The letter would propose the establishment of a fund from which the strengthening of the position of women would be financed.
Babic first won the election in her hometown of Visoko as a member of the main Bosniak Party for Democratic Action (SDA), but later left the party and was re-elected as an independent candidate.
Leaving the SDA was the best decision of her life, she said.
“When you accept the post of the mayor, you put yourself at the disposal of all citizens, you have to be a mayor of all citizens,” Babic explained. “But when you are a member of a party, you have to respect a certain ‘party discipline’, while when you are an independent mayor, you can make your own decisions.”
The disadvantage is that “you are deprived of certain funds” since Bosnia is not a transparent society, she said.
Still, Babic said her independence is a much better option.
“I make my decisions independently, based on expertise and information and not based on the policy that gave me this post,” she said.
Babic was an SDA member for a number of years, ran twice for the post of the mayor after she held the position of the cantonal finance minister.
“I learned a lot about the SDA. It is a slow system and many things you can’t change,” she said, adding that the party has to reform.
