Institutional Discrimination against the MinorityGroups in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Barrier to EU Membership

Abstract

Following widespread democratization processes in Eastern and Central Europe, in November 1990 the first multi-party elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter, Bosnia or BiH). These elections were among the first indicators that marked the democratic transition of the country from the communist regime to liberal democracy. However, political parties in the country were allowed to be organized along ethnic lines resulting in the nationalist parties together collecting 84% of the vote (Arnautovic, 2007: 7). Thus, an organization of the first democratic elections in the country marked the start of the political hegemony of nationalist political parties as the majority of the electorate voted for nationalist parties; that is, Bosniaks voted for Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Bosnian Serbs for Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), and Bosnian Croats for the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) (Freedom House, 2010: 122). To illustrate, even the post-election distribution of power was based upon ethnic principles so that the President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a Bosniak, president of the Parliament was a Serb, and the prime minister was a Croat representative. Furthermore, the war that broke out in 1992 further increased ethnic hatred and intolerance, resulting in ethnicity and ethnic solidarity as a dominant social and political cleavage.