Srdjan Dizdarević, a former chairman of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and Danis Tanović, a film director, created a new transnational party called 'Naša Stranka' (Our Party).
The new political formation will not serve as the voice of one particular group of people but of all Bosnians, its founders told a conference at the Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI) in Paris.
Dizdarević and Tanović said the separation of the country into three different ethnic groups - Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs - had led to the political impasse that characterises Bosnia and Herzegovina today. They argue that the situation has its origins in the Dayton Agreement, which established the current political division of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its governance structure.
"Bosnia has been frozen since 1995," said Dizdarević, referring to the large number of governing bodies in the country.
The highly decentralised organisation of the Bosnian-Croat Federation is based on ten constituencies, each of which has its own government.
The imposition of four different levels of government (municipalities, 'cantons', entities and federations) together with wide-ranging decentralisation has tended to paralyse the country, the experts explained. Citing an example from his own field of activity, Tanović pointed out that film production comes under the authority of three different culture ministers.
Such administrative accumulation is partly a result of legal requirements regarding equal representation of the country's three constituent nations. But this representation has been out-of-date since 1991, when the last census was organised, the speakers argued.
Since 1991, the figures have changed, and the number of Croats in particular has decreased. "The problem is that the census is more important than elections, as the division of power is based on these results," said French political scientist Jacques Rupnik.
Even if a new census is considered necessary by all political parties in Bosnia, it is still subject to divisions between different ethnic groups. For example, Serbian officials want to include ethnic and religious criteria, while Croats and Bosniaks oppose the idea.
Thus political discourse is not based on ideas, but on competition between "which candidate will best protect the interests of one group against the two others," deplored Dizdarević.
As a result, Bosniak candidates seek to protect their people from a new genocide, their Serbian counterparts want to maintain the autonomy of their entity and Croatian candidates seek to obtain more power and even recognition of a third political entity, he argued.
The founders of Naša Stranka do not want to see this kind of political gamesmanship repeated at the 2010 general election. They want to leave aside ethnic issues and promote social justice and equal opportunities instead. They also want to trim the administration and fight corruption, they explained.
Dizdarević said he wants Bosnia and Herzegovina to become "a normal country like any other European country". He expressed optimism that the new political party has a good chance of success in the October 2010 elections.
Dizdarević said the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina were largely in favour of joining the EU. But "they [citizens of BiH] have been deeply saddened by the fact that EU did not abolish the visa requirement in December 2009," he said.
On that occasion, visas were lifted for Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro (EurActiv 08/04/10).
