PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release : 9 September 1998

ICG Publishes Report Examining Bosnia's Forthcoming General Elections

The International Crisis Group (ICG) publishes today a report on Bosnia's forthcoming general elections.

The 16-page report, entitled Doing Democracy a Disservice: 1998 Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, examines what is to be Bosnia's fifth internationally-supervised poll since the end of the war.

The stakes in the 12 and 13 September 1998 elections could not be higher, for Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia) and also for the international community, which has invested so much financial and political capital in the peace process and is looking for a return on that investment. Moreover, the elections will bring some changes so the event will be hailed as a triumph.

However, the elections will not lay the ground for a self-sustaining peace process. Bosnian democracy is a charade and the political system fails to provide Bosnians with the ethnic security they require for their society to evolve in a healthy manner.

To build a healthy democracy Bosnia requires fundamental political reform and, in particular, a redesign of the electoral system in such a way as to guarantee Bosnians ethnic security.

The paper examines the nature of Bosnian democracy, the post-war environment in which elections have taken place, the legacy of the flawed elections of 1996 and resulting political failings as well as attempts to overcome those failings; it considers the various elections which are taking place and the likely outcomes and consequences of each poll; and it analyses the fundamental flaws in the existing political system with proposals for the kind of change which could help place Bosnian democracy on an even keel and make the peace process self-sustaining.

ICG has already published several reports on elections and electoral systems in Bosnia. This includes Changing the Logic of Bosnian Politics: Discussion Paper on Electoral Reform of 10 March 1998, Beyond Ballot Boxes: Municipal Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina of 10 September 1997 and Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina of 22 September 1996 and Addendum to the 22 September ICG Report on Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina of 30 October 1996.

Read the full report, Doing Democracy a Disservice: 1998 Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For further information and copies of the report, contact ICG in Sarajevo at (+387 71) 447 845, in Brussels at (+322) 502 9038, or in Washington at (+1 202) 986 9750.

[Bosnia Menu] - [ICG Home] - [Press Office]