Rhetoric: Western Balkan recipe

Since the first multiparty elections in the former Yugoslavia in 1990, which caused the defeat of the Communist Party and launched the independence of the former federal republics, politicians in each republic have continued to use the same successful recipe to win elections, fail to realize election promises and hang on to power. The recipe: nationalist rhetoric.

In most of the six former Yugoslav republics, the winning formula for sweeping elections has relied largely on a strong dose of ethnic or religious sentiments and fear-mongering in the form of convincing their ethnic constituents that other ethnic groups remain their mortal enemies.

Opportunistic politicians - who may or may not be true nationalists once away from the public eye - have a tendency to promise their voters just about anything, regardless of reality. In fact, in this region, the fulfillment of elections promises hovers at about 5 percent, though this does not keep voters from making the same choices time and again.

The tried-and-true tactic of scaring voters during an election campaign is not the exclusive invention of the Balkan politicians, but they have developed it to perfection, waiting until a couple of days ahead of the polls, during the election silence, to stage ethnic skirmishes that will ensure an ethnic vote.

Eighteen years after the first multiparty elections in the former Yugoslavia, political platforms remain largely the same across the region. Citizens fail to punish nationalist parties for war-mongering, corruption, organized crime, and notably, for ignoring pre-election promises. 

Srdjan Blagovcanin, executive director of the Bosnian branch of Transparency International (TI), told ISN Security Watch that nationalist parties were highly pragmatic in general in their use of nationalist rhetoric to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty among the different ethnic groups.

"When regular citizens are feeling fear and that their religious, ethnic or national identity is being jeopardized - which was basically falsely created by nationalist parties - they don't care about privatization, employment and corruption. They will vote for the parties that promised to protect them," Blagovcanin said.

Tracing the rhetoric

When the individual republics organized their multi-party elections in 1990, the nationalists parties in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina based their campaigns on the need to secede from Yugoslavia, fearing that Serbia, controlling the federal institutions and military, would minimize the republics' rights and powers and suppress the Slovenes, Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). 

In early April 1990, Slovenia was the first Yugoslavian republic to hold multiparty elections, and an anti-communist six-party coalition took control of the parliament. At that time, the new coalition based its campaign on supporting wider autonomy for Kosovo, the Serbian province with an ethnic Albanian majority. The coalition campaigned Kosovo's right to secede. Then-newly elected Slovenian president Milan Kucan portrayed Serbia as the enemy of Slovene democracy, as witnessed by its repression of Albanian rights.

Similar campaigning occurred in late April in Croatia and in December in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where nationalist parties overwhelmingly won the elections, using the rise of nationalism and insisting on independence from Yugoslavia and protection from Slobodan Milosevic to ensure that Serbia would not continue to control all institutions in the federal state and end the republics' autonomy.

Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia opposed the secession from Serbia, and after two republics gained independence, they created their own, Serb-dominated regions. When independence was proclaimed, the wars started, in Croatia in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1992, ending in 1995.

Nationalism vs progress

Even now, 13 years after the end of the war, in order to win the elections, politicians use the same tactics they used in 1990, playing on the ethnic, religious or national sentiments, swearing to protect "their voters" from the alleged negative aspirations or rival ethnic groups, though all are Slavic and the term "ethnicity" seems to be rather inventive in this region.

In Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, a high level of corruption, high unemployment and the fact that the majority of citizens are poor today remains low on the list of priorities for politicians. And upon examining the election results, it would seem that these most pressing issues are not of great concern among the voters, either.

In Serbia, politicians, both nationalist and moderate, still use Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February, as a major campaign tool, promising Serbian voters that the province will once again be returned to Serbia.

Serbian nationalist parties still win a high percentage of votes, even though their campaign largely ignores economy prosperity or EU aspirations. On the contrary, nationalist parties have campaigned to block Serbia's EU integration if Kosovo is not returned. 

Slovenian and Croatian politicians, lacking a "traditional ethnic enemy" within their borders, instead blame each other for border pretensions. The two neighboring countries are in the midst of a dispute that has lasted for more than a decade; and this dispute is used much to the advantage of politicians on both sides in elections. During campaign season, there is an increase of the incidents in the contested areas, raising the animosity between Slovene and Croat voters, who then take their hyped up adrenaline to the polls, ignoring the issues that really matter.
   
On the other hand, Bosnia and Herzegovina is probably the best example of successful nationalist rhetoric, where nationalist parties from three ethnic groups consistently raise the level of the ethnic animosity to the possible renewal of wartime violence, and then soon after elections dismiss their animosities and create ruling coalitions with each other.

For the majority of citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina who choose to vote for nationalist parties, their logic tells them that they have to vote for "their" ethnic group because others with vote for "their" ethnic group as well.

The Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 created two semi-state entities: Republika Srpska, dominated by Bosnian Serbs, and the Bosniak-Croat Federation.

Several months ahead of elections, Bosnian Croat nationalist parties renew the idea of the creation of the third entity, which would be dominated by them alone. Also, arguing that they are minority in the Federation entity and being suppressed by Bosniaks, Croat politicians request separate a television station in which the contents are strictly in the Croatian language.

Bosniak nationalist politicians increase their requests for the suspension of Republika Srpska, saying that it was created on the backbone of genocide and war crimes. Months before the elections, politicians travel throughout the world lobbying for this suspension, but after the votes are counted, the nationalist rhetoric stops.

In tandem, Bosnian Serb nationalist politicians threaten to separate Republika Srpska from Bosnia entirely. In their campaigns, Bosnian Serb politicians demand the return of the powers and jurisdictions from the state level back to the entity level.

During the latest local elections in October, the campaign was marked by widespread nationalistic rhetoric and an almost absolute neglect for issues of local interest.

Out of 5,000 statements given by members of political parties during the campaign, 74 percent dealt with general issues, such as the country's constitution, the census or European integration - none of which have anything to do with municipal elections. In only 2 percent of public statements did politicians offer concrete programs for improving their communities.

According to a study conducted by several Bosnian NGOs, political parties on average realize only five percent of their election campaigns promises. And this percentage is similar in all other ex-Yugoslavian republics.

Blagovcanin said that the purpose of using nationalist rhetoric was a lack of real political and economic platforms among parties. "Nationalist parties promise a lot, knowing that they can't realize it, and then let the international community deal with the reforms. If the international community fails, and it would fail due the obstruction of nationalist parties, they can always use that excuse," Blagovcanin said.

Fake nationalism

However, most of the politicians - members of the nationalist or even radical parties - are actually not nationalists at all, but find nationalism a useful tool for electoral and career success.

There are few who could confirm that Slobodan Milosevic was a notorious Serb nationalist. Nor could they do so for former deputy president of the Serbian Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic, who spoke during election campaigns about a "Greater Serbia" with borders from Slovenia to Greece. After being sacked from the party and after consulting a PR agency, Nikolic formed his own party, not so radical and much less bent on a "Greater Serbia."

There are dozens of similar examples across the region where politicians would radically change their political views in order to secure a mandate and further their own careers.

Current Bosnian Prime Minister Nikola Spiric changed political parties six times, from communists to radicals and, presently, of the ruling party. In the past decade, Spiric, also a university professor, held a number of governmental and parliamentary positions representing varyingly different political views. 

Sonja Biserko, president of the Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, told ISN Security Watch that this absurdity illustrates more about the citizens, the voters, than it does about the politicians themselves.     

"But I believe that the majority of the citizens who vote for the nationalist parties are not nationalist themselves, but vote for them just to have the feeling of belonging to their ethnic group," Biserko said.

She added that the fact that people lent support to nationalist parties did not mean that they were determined to look for solutions through radical or extreme means.

Experts believe that the nationalist parties in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Slovenia, Montenegro and Croatia to a smaller extent, will surely continue to use their tried-and-true ethnic-based campaign rhetoric, focusing on rural and undereducated voters, which in turn will lead, sadly, to a greater boycott by educated, urban voters – those voters who choose real issues over stale nationalism. And it is difficult to blame them for their growing cynicism.