Nuray BOZBORA
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System with the prospect of building a multi-ethnic democracy is stillborn, when considering the disputes among
the three ethnic constituent peoples in most of basic issues required for the realization of this prospect. The fact
that Bosnia is still not a unifed image indicates that the local political elites in fact follow an alternative agenda,
despite the prospect of european integration and EU membership.
However, the main problem here is that, neither presence nor absence of the international involvement in BiH
seems to make a contribution to reverse this situation in the current conditions. A few examples from recent
period shed light on this situation. With decreasing external intervention to unblock deadlock, this frequently
leads to a lack of any stable governance. BiH has experienced 15 months without a government following the
October general elections. On the other hand, still today, many problems on the key issues that can not be solved
in Parliaments of Assembly are referred to the Constitutional Court which is a hybrid body of in the judicial sys-
tem of BiH. Thus, the presence of the international or semi-international institutions such as OHR/EUHRS and
the Constitutional Court offers a great advantage for the local politicians who are reluctant to take responsibility
on the issues they deem contrary to the interest of their own ethnic group. This is especially the case since High
Representatives have given up using the Bonn Powers. Thus, the weak presence of OHR has provided the local
political leaders to make political maneuvers as they want without any responsibility. Although its legitimacy is
being questioned, OHR/EUSR is the Highest authority to establish an unified multi-ethnic democracy in Bosnia
today and aims to transfer all responsibilities to the local politicians as soon as possible. On the other hand, there
are the local politicians who makes contribution to the fragmented structure of BiH by choosing to pursue an
ethnic politics that is the biggest obstacle to democratization.
Dayton Agreement made in conditions of war in Bosnia have been successful to stop the war between the ethnic
groups, but failed to provide a political and social integration of the people of Bosnia. In the current conditions,
local politicians as well as international supervision seem to be far from being a source of generalized trust among
the Bosnian people.
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