Results
So the monitors were monitored. And thus the elections took place in a dignified and orderly manner, but ofcourse not everybody is happy with the results. The Croat member of the Presidency Jovic for instance. He claims that the victory of his party is stolen by Bosniaks, and therefore he will not be a member of the Presidency any longer (I do not follow his rational...). He is quoted saying: "I am the Croat member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, otherwise something shocking and perhaps tragic wil happen to this country." "Everything is open and everything is possible after what has happened." Right, loosing is an art, and he does not master it.
Jokes aside, it is quite shocking to hear a politician, even a President, say this about the result of a democratic process. It is in my eyes more than the words of a dissapointed loosing polictician; those are threaths, and maybe even incitements to violence and. Threaths to people and to a society. But of course we should interpret his words in a different light, and see it in the light of the emotion of the moment and so on and so forth. Right.
It can be roughly argued that in the Federation the more moderate parties won, and in the RS, as expected, the party of Dodik, know for its nationalistic rethorics, won. Researchers from an NGO from Sarajevo called 'Alumni Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies' found that politicians during their campaigns here devoted an average of 1,5 % of their speeches to concrete issues, the rest was lost on rethorics. Interesting....
I could have made a difference here too, by the way- I almost voted....
Since we managed to loose the monitors we were monitoring within thirty seconds after leaving the parking lot of our hotel, we went on our own to a polling station, just to see what it was like.
When we were there, someone came up to me and asked whether I, since I was a foreigner, wanted to help an elderly woman vote -obviously I look very trustworthy. She had problems with her eyes, which I interpreted as her being illiterate, but it seemed to me that she knew who she wanted to vote for. The voting process however is quite cumbersome. You have to fill out 4 different forms, and it was not all clear what everything was (my Bosnian is existing, but not good enough to be able to understand everything). So when I entered the booth with her, it turned out that she did not have a clue about who she wanted to vote for- I could fill out whatever I wanted!! I do believe in civic duty, but this was a bit too much. I apologized, and went to the polling chief and told him to find someone else, who reads Bosnian better, in order to really help her.... I could have been big, if only....
So much for the elections. As far as I understand my friends, nothing will change now- maybe the seating in Parliament, but not the policy...
The weather has changed- winter is coming. The last week was warm, with a very warm wind, like a Mistral. Today it started raining. Non-stop.
Yesterday I saw the movie 'Balcancan'. If you ever have the opportunity to see it, do it. People here are very good at taking the piss out of themselves, and this movie excells at it. No matter how bad the situation is here, they manage to make very black jokes about it....
Tommorow off to Belgrade. If anyone has tips, please let me know.
Jokes aside, it is quite shocking to hear a politician, even a President, say this about the result of a democratic process. It is in my eyes more than the words of a dissapointed loosing polictician; those are threaths, and maybe even incitements to violence and. Threaths to people and to a society. But of course we should interpret his words in a different light, and see it in the light of the emotion of the moment and so on and so forth. Right.
It can be roughly argued that in the Federation the more moderate parties won, and in the RS, as expected, the party of Dodik, know for its nationalistic rethorics, won. Researchers from an NGO from Sarajevo called 'Alumni Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies' found that politicians during their campaigns here devoted an average of 1,5 % of their speeches to concrete issues, the rest was lost on rethorics. Interesting....
I could have made a difference here too, by the way- I almost voted....
Since we managed to loose the monitors we were monitoring within thirty seconds after leaving the parking lot of our hotel, we went on our own to a polling station, just to see what it was like.
When we were there, someone came up to me and asked whether I, since I was a foreigner, wanted to help an elderly woman vote -obviously I look very trustworthy. She had problems with her eyes, which I interpreted as her being illiterate, but it seemed to me that she knew who she wanted to vote for. The voting process however is quite cumbersome. You have to fill out 4 different forms, and it was not all clear what everything was (my Bosnian is existing, but not good enough to be able to understand everything). So when I entered the booth with her, it turned out that she did not have a clue about who she wanted to vote for- I could fill out whatever I wanted!! I do believe in civic duty, but this was a bit too much. I apologized, and went to the polling chief and told him to find someone else, who reads Bosnian better, in order to really help her.... I could have been big, if only....
So much for the elections. As far as I understand my friends, nothing will change now- maybe the seating in Parliament, but not the policy...
The weather has changed- winter is coming. The last week was warm, with a very warm wind, like a Mistral. Today it started raining. Non-stop.
Yesterday I saw the movie 'Balcancan'. If you ever have the opportunity to see it, do it. People here are very good at taking the piss out of themselves, and this movie excells at it. No matter how bad the situation is here, they manage to make very black jokes about it....
Tommorow off to Belgrade. If anyone has tips, please let me know.
Labels: elections
posted by David Hein at 11:13 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home