Through Bosnian Eyes: The Political Memoirs of a Bosnian Serb

IV The Triumph of the National Parties

M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES IV. THE TRIUMPH OF THE NATIONAL PARTIES After the results of the elections were announced, a major press conference was held in the Bosnian Parliament. Representatives of all political parties that ran in the parliamentary elections gave statements. Ismet Grbo, then se,cretary of the DSS, was our representative at this conference. When advising Grbo on his speech, I suggested he should point out that the elections had passed peacefully, and were an expression of the.democratic will of the Bosnian people, in spite of the considerable problems with the elections themselves. The DSS wished the victorious parties success in the execution ofgovernment, and hoped their rule would uphold the interests of the citizens and nations who had freely elected them. As one of the parties that had, albeit very modestly, passed through the elections, the DSS would cooperate in any program of government that would assist the common and general advance. of Bosnia, its transformation into a modern market economy and plural democracy, and that would, in all ways and circumstances, foster its identity, its sovereignty, and its multiethnic structure. Several days after the publication of the first election results showing the victory of the three national parties, Grbo and I visited . their presidents. Our first visit was paid to Karadzic in his office in the former Club of Members of Parliament. We congratulated him on the election results, butour session with him was cut short, since he was constantly called away to take telephone calls from several municipalities in the west of the Bosnian Krajina, where the ethnic structure has since been so radically altered - towns such as Grahovo, Drvar, Livno, Glamoc. He was overwhelmed by a variety of problems, and these preoccupied him. He showed no particular 43 M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES emotionat his victory in the elections, nordid he have much to say. But it was noticeable that he was already obsessed by the course events might take in Croatia particularly. He mentioned the problems of anti-Yugoslavism and the swing·in the popular mood against the JNA. Of course, this was just a courtesy visit, and was soon over. We did succeed, however, in saying that we expected the parties which had won power to act responsibly in approaching the problems facing Bosnia, and that they would resolve them in a spirit of mutual solidarity, trust and tolerance, in the interests of peace and progress. Next we visited Alija Izetbegovic, in the offices of the SDA, which was then in the municipal building of Stari Grad, Sarajevo. We congratulated him, wished him success in his future work, and added our hopes for cooperation between our parties in Parliament. Izetbegovicsaid in response something that made a deep impression. He said.that the future of democracy in Bosnia, and of Bosnia itself, must lie in modern European social democracy. Matters had fallen out otherwise, but this would remain the only viable solution for the future of Bosnia. Thus, his answer to our congratulations on his victory was to wish that responsibility for the political future of Bosnia had gone to the parties that we ourselves represented: the DSS and our coalition partner the SDP. I feel that in saying this Izetbegovic showed himself both clear-sighted and honest regarding the development potential of the political structures of Bosnia, given its ambitions to join the community of European states. It was a totally spontaneous comment, but it suggested Izetbegovic was already well aware that the victory of the three national parties, did not necessarily mean prosperity for Bosnia and its people. While our visit may have prompted Izetbegovic to make this statement, subsequent events were to show he had already considered the nature of modern democracy and its rules. He realized that contemporary democracy in Europe, at its most advanced, has nothing to do with ethnic homogenization or the confinement of political interests to ethnic membership. It seems likely that Alija IzetbegoviC's theory on Bosnia's future lying with social democracy was essentially about finding·a solution in contemporary European methodologies for developing a democratic market economy. In itself his theory implied awareness that government founded on the concept of ethnic parties would I 144 M. Pejanovic, THROUGH BOSNIAN EYES· turn out to be a dead end. Of course, this did not take account of the war and the goals ofthe Serb nationalists in particular to build Greater States...