Nove vlade, bilo da su već konstituirane ili su u procesu konstituiranja, ne obećavaju radikalne promjene u odnosu na dosadašnje stanje. Neke stranke su postale jače, druge slabije, treće su doživjele poraz, ali nema sveobuhvatne promjene u fundamentalnoj prirodi načina koaliranja. Stoga je teško očekivati nešto temeljno novo od stranki koje su bile na vlasti nedavno ali i ranije, tako da u vladama ne postoji novina koja obećava. Teškoće su, zapravo, već sada dosta jasne u smislu da postoje tenzije u Republici Srpskoj gdje imamo Dodikovu stranku SNSD u vladi, dok je član predsjedništva Mladen Ivanić iz opozicije. Osim toga, opozicija i stranke iz Republike Srpske koje su na vlasti sarađivat će na državnom nivou. Ovo je slična situacija koju smo imali u prethodnom periodu i vidjeli smo da je ovo često izvor tenzija i konflikata.

Čini mi se da ćemo ponovo imati dva ista scenarija: s jedne strane imat ćemo konstantnu krizu vlade i bez obzira na to što će moguće vlada ovog puta biti brže formirana nego što je to bio slučaj ranijih godina, ipak se čini da će se javljati učestale krize koje se djelimično proizvode kako bi se rekalibrirala struktura moći, a s druge strane imamo fenomen da je svako negdje na vlasti. Ovo je fundament koji otežava bilo kakve promjene u Bosni i Hercegovini, jer kada su svi negdje na vlasti onda niko nije sasvim u opoziciji.

To znači da svako može da kritikuje svakoga za sve što se ne dešava i bazični strukturalni problem bosanske politike je što niko nije zaista odgovoran za donošenje odluka. Ovo olakšava nastanak situacije da se uvijek krivi neko drugi ukoliko nešto ne funkcioniše kako treba. Smatram da je upravo to način kako su stranke uspjele da sačuvaju svoju moć, govoreći da je onaj drugi na vlasti odgovoran zašto nešto ne funkcioniše. Po mom mišljenju ovo stvara dinamiku gdje svi postaju sve više frustrirani radom stranki, ali svi oni na kraju ponovo budu izabrani i ponovo ulaze u vladu.

S te tačke gledišta, trenutno ne postoji unutrašnja sila, nikakva interna dinamika unutar političkog sistema koja bi obećavala promjenu. Da li će u budućnosti biti drugačije ovisi najviše o eksternim faktorima: bio to pritisak Evropske unije s jedne ili nezadovoljstvo građana Bosne i Hercegovine s druge strane. Ali ne smatram da će se desiti značajna promjena u smislu reformi koje će inicirati same vlade bez vanjskog pritiska ili utjecaja.

The new governments, as far as they are constituted or in the process of being constituted, don’t promise a fundamental change to what we’ve had so far. Some parties are stronger, some parties are weaker, others are out, but there is no overall change in the fundamental nature of the type of coalition. So it’s hard to expect anything fundamentally new from parties which have been in power recently and also before, so there is no novelty in the governments promising. In fact, the difficulties are already quite clear in the sense that we have tensions in the RS where we have the SNSD, the Dodik’s party, in the government, but then the representative of the presidency, Mladen Ivanić, is from the opposition. Also, the opposition and the government parties of the RS will cooperate at the state level. That’s very similar to what we had in the previous period and we’ve seen that this is often a source of tensions and conflicts.

As we’re going to have the same two features: one is the constant crisis of government, even if the current government might be formed more quickly than last time around, it still seems like that there is going to be this frequent crisis emerging which are partly manufactured to recalibrate the power structure, as well as the phenomenon that everybody is in power somewhere. I think this fundamentally makes it very hard to achieve any change in Bosnia, because if everybody is in power somewhere, nobody is in the opposition completely.

This means that everybody can criticise everybody else for what is not happening and the fundamental structural problem of Bosnian politics is that nobody is really responsible for decisions. That makes it very easy to always blame somebody else if something doesn’t work out. And I think this is the way in which the parties have been able to retain their power by saying: It’s always the others who are also in power somewhere which are responsible for things not working. I think this creates this dynamic where everybody gets more and more frustrated with parties but everybody gets re-elected at the end of the day and then joins the government again.

From that point of view, there is no internal force at the moment, no internal dynamics within the political system which promises any change. Whether there will be a different behaviour depends very much on external factors: whether it’s the European Union on the one side or the citizens of Bosnia and their dissatisfaction on the other. But I don’t think that any significant change in terms of reform or otherwise will come from the governments themselves without this external pressure or impetus.