The Record of the Post-Dayton Elections

Abstract

Before 1996, Bosnia has had only little experience with competitive multiparty elections. Fewer multiparty elections were held in Bosnian history before 1996 than since. In the Communist period, elections did take place, but in the absence of opposition candidates were a foregone conclusion. Despite the interruption of the democratic process by the war, the political scene is very much shaped by the same political parties as the first post-Communist elections in 1990. Elections have been a key aspect of the international post-war reconstruction exercise in Bosnia. However, their function has varied greatly over time. The first election in September 1996 had a three-fold objective: (a) to provided for elected institutions to allow for a withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force; (b) to replace wartime elites with (new) legitimate office holders, and to (c) build a “democratic” Bosnia, viewed as being the diametric opposite of the state during and prior to the war (Shoup 1997: 3–4).95 The rapid holding of elections effectively facilitated the transformation of the armed conflict into a political dispute. As Guerrero and Bermudez have suggested, only elections would bestow legitimacy on the different ethnic elites to engage in a process of co-operation and eventually reconciliation (Guerrero and Bermudez 2000: 133).