The main Bosniak and Bosnian Serb parties in the country underestimated citizens and that is why they lost Sarajevo and Banja Luka in the Sunday local election, sociology professor Slavo Kukic told N1 on Tuesday.
The strongest Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), on Sunday lost the post of mayor in the administrative centre of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Banja Luka.
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Meanwhile, the main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), lost most municipalities in the capital, Sarajevo.
After it became clear to SNSD leader and member of Bosnia’ tripartite Presidency, Milorad Dodik, that his party would lose the mayoral post, he announced on Monday that his party would freeze all entity government investments into the city.
On Tuesday, he clarified that his party would continue implementing its projects in the city but that it will not support the programme of the new mayor, Drasko Stanivukovic.
According to Kukic, such reactions from Dodik indicate that his “fear of the future is real.”
“Dodik has serious reasons for that. The citizens of RS, especially Banja Luka, know that Dodik took over everything that could be taken in RS. Some 20 days ago I was listening to what some people were saying – that he bought a hotel, a shopping mall, a security agency. I am not sure that all this and his attempts at intimidation will save him, especially the threats he made to all those who voted against him and to the parties that are not willing to obey his dictatorship,” the professor told N1.
“I think that Dodik is, in his state of rage, doing what will only push him further into the abyss and what could damage him much more radically in the next elections,” Kukic said, referring to the 2022 general election.
This is unavoidable if Dodik does not “come to his senses and apologises” to the citizens for his behaviour with which he “humiliated and insulted them as people,” Kukic said.
Dodik has underestimated citizens and must change his behaviour in order to even have a chance in the next election, he argued.
“Knowing Dodik and his way of thinking, I am not sure that he is inclined and ready to make such a turn. Everything indicates that his fall in 2022 is something that cannot be avoided,” he said.
But according to Kukic, the situation in the other Bosnian semi-autonomous entity, the Federation (FBiH), is similar.
“Everything that has been happening in the last year or two in areas where the SDA was unquestionably in power has simply driven people away from both the party and its leadership,” Kukic said, mentioning one of the high-profile scandals which members of the SDA were involved in – the allegedly illegal procurement of 100 ventilators for COVID-19 treatment which, according to prosecutors, were not fit for use.
Kukic criticised the SDA for trying to convince citizens that the process was legal and that it was for their own good, saying that members of the party underestimate the intelligence of the citizens.
Kukic said, however, that he believes that the main Croat party in the country, the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), will likely “maintain the tensions in 2022 with its narrative on the inequality of the least numerous people in Bosnia who don’t have their own territorial unit.”
But according to Kukic, the legitimacy of the vote in areas where the party is in power is questionable in itself because “in the area between Stolac and Livno and wherever else the HDZ is unquestionably the leader,” the voter turnout is about 30 percent.
