VZCZCXRO7514
OO RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHVJ #1916/01 2331114
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 211114Z AUG 06  *****CORRECTED COPY******
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4233
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUFOAOA/USNIC SARAJEVO
RUEKJCS/JCS WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SARAJEVO 001916 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR (DICARLO), EUR/SCE, P (BAME); NSC FOR BRAUN; 
OSD FOR FLORY 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/01/2011 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIAN ELECTIONS - THIS TIME THEY COUNT 
 
REF: SARAJEVO 1891 
 
SARAJEVO 00001916  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Douglas McElhaney.  Reason 1.4(b) and (d). 
 
************C O R R E C T E D  C O P Y**********CORRECTED TAGS 
 
¶1. (U) This is the second in a planned series of 
election-related telegrams. 
 
¶2. (C) SUMMARY: Since 1996, Bosnia has been generally 
successful in forging a democratic process under close 
supervision of the international community.  However, this 
year's elections, in our judgment, the country's most 
important since Dayton, will constitute a watershed in 
Bosnia's history.  With the planned departure of the Office 
of the High Representative (OHR) in summer 2007, the 
politicians elected on October 1 will be solely responsible 
for charting Bosnia's path towards Euro-Atlantic integration. 
 The political rhetoric to date is not encouraging. 
Politicians from all three ethnic groups have campaigned by 
appealing to their nationalist base rather than by focusing 
on the issues important to Bosnia's future.  Developments 
outside Bosnia, including Montenegrin independence and the 
future status of Kosovo, have only fueled nationalist flames. 
 As donor fatigue mounts, and with the foreign policy 
attention of the EU and the international community 
increasingly diverted elsewhere, it is not at all clear that 
candidates and the electorate are willing to move beyond 
historical grievances to act as stakeholders in a cohesive 
political system and to chart a course towards EU 
integration.  END SUMMARY 
 
These Elections Matter, But Do The Bosnians Get It? 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶3. (C) Integrating Bosnia into Euro-Atlantic institutions is 
critical to our goal of building a Europe that is whole, 
free, prosperous and at peace.  Decisions later this year by 
NATO on Bosnian participation in PfP and by the EU on signing 
a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Bosnia will be 
crucial in determining the course of Bosnia's future over the 
next decade.  However, while decisions in Brussels have the 
potential to offer Bosnia a much clearer prospect for a 
Euro-Atlantic future, the outcome of Bosnia's October 1 
national elections will determine whether Bosnia is capable 
of embracing and moving energetically towards that future 
over the next four years or whether it remains mired in the 
conflicts of the past.  In our view this makes Bosnia's 2006 
elections the most important since the first post-war 
elections of 1996. 
 
¶4. (C) In June 2007, the Office of the High Representative 
(OHR) will almost certainly close its doors.  Though an-EU 
Special Representative (EUSR) will replace OHR, the 
international community will no longer have the authority to 
remove obstructionist politicians from office or to draft or 
impose legislation.  The EU will not agree to assume such 
powers.  For the first time since 1991, the politicians 
elected by the citizens of BiH will have sole responsibility 
for running the country.  Voters will no longer be able to 
use the polls to express residual ethnic tensions confident 
that the international community will step in to correct the 
worst excesses of Bosnia's nationalist politicians. 
 
¶5. (C) The electorate does not yet grasp that change is 
coming.  A recent internal OHR poll shared with Embassy shows 
that 62 percent of those in Republika Srpska (RS) and 68.5 
percent in the Federation (FBiH) believe OHR will continue to 
impose legislation and remove politicians following the 
October elections.  Over half of poll respondents nationwide 
answered "no" when asked if they believe OHR will close next 
year.  The prevalence of these views along with voter apathy 
(experts predict turnout to drop from 2002's 51 percent) 
encourages politicians to rely on nationalist rhetoric to 
mobilize the base of their primarily ethnically-based parties. 
 
Look Back in Anger 
------------------ 
 
¶6. (C) As a consequence, Bosnia's politicians are focused on 
the country's past, not its future, despite efforts by the 
U.S. and the international community to encourage issue-based 
campaigning.  Bosniak parties remain locked in a public 
competition over who can take the hardest line on the 
Republika Srpska's (RS) continued existence, and over whose 
 
SARAJEVO 00001916  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
*********C O R R E C T E D  C O P Y********CORRECTED TAGS 
 
leaders are better Muslims.  Serb parties are debating who 
will best defend an enduring RS in the face of reforms, 
particularly police reform, required to integrate Bosnia into 
Euro-Atlantic and European institutions.  Though they 
generate fewer headlines, the Croats are also playing to 
parochial interests with some politicians clinging to demands 
for a third (Croat) entity. 
 
¶7. (C) While it would be unrealistic to expect an election 
campaign free of nationalist rhetoric, the level of political 
invective to date is more heated than many local observers 
expected.  Campaign rhetoric threatens to create barriers 
between politicians that will be unbridgeable after 
elections.  With most critical reforms stalled, such 
divisions would jeopardize the compromises that will be 
necessary to get reforms moving again.  This prospect has 
prompted public and private calls for restraint from the 
international community, but to date Bosnia's politicians 
have not responded positively. 
 
External Factors Are Not Helping 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Events outside Bosnia are also shaping the domestic 
political environment in unhelpful ways by fueling debate 
about Bosnia's future that is antithetical to the country's 
integration into Euro-Atlantic and European institutions. 
With passions already inflamed over the failure of 
constitutional reform, Montenegro's vote for independence has 
prompted speculation among Serb politicians about a similar 
referendum in the RS.  Hanging over the fall election 
campaign is the mid-autumn deadline for concluding 
negotiations on a status package for Kosovo.  It is unlikely 
Bosnian politicians will resist the temptation for political 
mischief presented by the specter of Kosovo independence 
portending a vicious cycle of nationalist rhetoric over 
Kosovo just before voters head to the polls.  Some local 
politicians in Sarajevo are now saying openly that Bosnian 
Serb rhetoric that places the BiH state in question has been 
planned by Banja Luka with the connivance of Serbian PM 
Kostunica.  Although we have no information to suggest that 
is true, we note that Kostunica and RS PM Dodik met recently 
to discuss "border issues", which are the responsibility of 
the Bosnian State. 
 
What Does this Mean for the U.S. 
------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (C) It has always been difficult to get Bosnia's 
politicians to do the right thing, but the course of the 2006 
election campaign suggests Bosnia's course after summer 2007 
may be characterized by more setbacks than the international 
community had hoped.  We are not suggesting that Bosnia will 
fall apart, but we do believe that we will likely need to 
press hard between October 2006 and June 2007 to lock in key 
reforms that will allow Bosnia to weather the likely internal 
political storms.  These include constitutional reform and 
the reforms required by the EU to sign a Stabilization and 
Association Agreement (i.e., police reform, public 
broadcasting, and ICTY cooperation).  Ironically, the EU is 
not pushing their reforms as one might expect.  The signs of 
"enlargement fatigue" are evident in the absence of European 
political will to take hard actions to bring a successful 
conclusion to the SAA agreement.  The U.S. and the 
international community will retain considerable, albeit 
diminishing, leverage over Bosnia's political course for the 
next 10 months.  We need to use it to ensure that Bosnia 
holds together as a functioning democracy and remains firmly 
on the path to Euro-Atlantic and European integration. 
CEFKIN