Bosnia and Herzegovina: Nations in Transit 2024 Country Report | Freedom House (2024)

The international community’s involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s secured peace but never established a liberal democracy. The consociationalist model established by the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the 1992–95 Bosnian War, which reorganized the state into two autonomous entities—the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dominated by ethnic Bosniaks and Croats, and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska—operating under a weak central government, brought relative security to the country but left governance unstable. Ethnonationalist patronage and power networks have since cemented a communitarian model of democracy reliant on constant populist mobilization. The result is that three parallel ethnic societies exist separately within one state. Despite some gains at the local level in recent years, non-nationalist political forces are too weak to reverse the process of autocratization. Bosnia and Herzegovina also maintains democratic features, including the de jure division of competencies among the branches of government, deeply decentralized state structures, regular elections, and the existence of independent media (albeit under political influence). In sum, the resulting model is a hybrid regime with a mix of autocratic and democratic features.

While the functioning of democracy at the state and regional levels has improved in some regards following the October 2022 general elections, the complexity of the system provides to be an obstacle in creating governing majorities. The processes of forming governments continued at all levels deep into 2023; the government in Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, for instance, was formed more than a year after the elections, succeeding a government that was operating in a placeholder capacity, i.e. ruling with a “technical mandate” for the past five years since the previous elections when they were not able to form a majority. In general, government formation processes were open to manipulation and ruling coalitions in some cases were short-lived, creating additional obstacles to good governance. Institutions are weak even in communities where the supposedly non-nationalist forces have won past elections. For example, in the state capital of Sarajevo, Mayor Benjamina Karić frequently abuses her position to silence certain movements and causes—as when she has refused initiatives from the LGBT+ communities, or declared a day of mourning because of a murder in another city and thus forced the temporary suspension of the Sarajevo Film Festival—while refusing to consider any criticism of her actions.1

The candidate status granted to Bosnia and Herzegovina by the European Union (EU) in December 2022 belied the lack of progress in democratic and economic reforms. Bosnian civil society worried throughout 2023 that the EU’s decision could make it appear that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s governing apparatus is genuinely trying to bring the country closer to the EU’s standards.2 In reality, while all Bosnian political actors declare readiness for European integration, the necessary reforms are stalled by the same actors’ inaction, obstruction, and active boycotts of politics. The EU announced 14 priorities for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2019, but by December 2023 only one had been achieved.3 Despite this, the EU granted the country contingent/conditional approval that month to open accession negotiations in 2024.

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In 2023, officials in the Republika Srpska entity went beyond their usual boycott of state institutions and instead undermined the country’s very constitutional order by passing laws blocking the implementation of decisions by High Representative Christian Schmidt, the internationally appointed official who oversaw the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, and judgements by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Court judgements in RS territory.4 Despite the high representative’s subsequent annulment of the legislation5 and amendment of the nation’s criminal code to make such actions illegal, RS president Milorad Dodik issued decrees to affirm all laws passed by the entity’s assembly.6 Accordingly, the state prosecutor brought criminal charges against Dodik for defying the high representative. Dodik’s trial started in October 2023 in Sarajevo, although it was postponed several times due to procedural maneuvers initiated by the defense, including unsuccessful requests to move the trial to the RS’s de facto capital of Banja Luka. Never before had Dodik gone this far in challenging the state and its institutions—he had previously challenged the state’s authority verbally but had always stopped short of taking criminal action.

Besides his actions against Schmidt and the Constitutional Court, Dodik also ratcheted up his rhetoric promoting RS secession throughout 2023, a process that has been ongoing for several years prior. He continued to advocate for the Republika Srpska gaining independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina and joining Serbia, and spoke openly about the “Serbian World”—an irredentist ideology with parallels to the “Russian World” concept promoted by Russian president Vladimir Putin. At the same time, Dodik antagonized liberal-democratic–minded politicians and citizens by awarding a medal of honor to Putin,7 and by adopting a defamation law that recriminalizes libel in the RS despite protests and warnings from media, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations.8 RS authorities initiated parliamentary discussions on a “foreign agents” law that would further restrict the ability of independent media to inform the public and put additional pressure on civil society. The draft law, RS civil society activists claim, is in many ways modeled on similar legislation in undemocratic countries with the aim of quashing dissent in the Republika Srpska.9

Children in three cantons continued their education segregated along ethnic lines through the practice known as “two schools under one roof.” Disrespect and vandalism of monuments commemorating civilian—mainly non-Bosniak—victims who were brutally murdered during the 92-95 siege of Sarajevo went unanswered. Meanwhile, in Mostar, local authorities did not make any progress in discovering who carried out the destruction of hundreds of memorial stones in the city’s Partisans Memorial Cemetery, which honored the Yugoslav antifascist resistance fighters who died in World War II.

In 2023, High Representative Schmidt used his authority to impose 11 decisions upon Bosnia and Herzegovina’s authorities, underlining the dysfunction and lack of capacity and will in Bosnian institutions that require his interventions to prevent further deterioration of processes. Among the decisions he imposed were amendments to the criminal laws of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the RS, and the FBiH, as well as several decisions to prevent laws and decisions adopted by the RS parliament from coming into force.10

In an August 2023 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Bosnia Herzegovina’s electoral process was discriminatory, adding to a number of judgements since December 2009 that required the country to change its constitution and electoral laws in order to provide equal rights to all citizens.11 However, four election cycles have passed since the first of those court decisions, without an effort by the government to pass a law that would address any of the prior judgements. Following the 2021 expiration of the mandate of a Bosnian judge serving on the ECHR, the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina—the three-member body that collectively serves as the country’s head of state—has failed to name candidates to replace the outgoing judge on the court for two years, and has left the Council of Europe without Bosnian experts for several years, illustrating the incompetence of Bosnian authorities and their general disregard for democratic norms and values.

Independent media and the civic sector have a strong presence in Bosnian society, but local and national governments largely disregard their activities. Despite the consultative framework in place that should allow the civic sector to play a role in decision-making processes, in practice its participation is “sporadic, inconsistent and not substantial,” according to one report by a local organization.12

Femicide remained a serious issue in Bosnian society in 2023. On several occasions in Bosnian cities, citizens took to the streets to express anger and demand legislation to protect victims. However, the governing structures only paid lip service to combatting violence against women. In one indicative case, the owner of a hotel in Jablanica was sentenced to only 10 months’ imprisonment for brutally beating and severely injuring a female employee in August 2023. (The prosecution has said that it would appeal his sentence.) While Borjana Krišto in January 2023 became the first woman to chair the Council of Ministers—Bosnia and Herzegovina’s decentralized, state-level government—and another woman sits on the presidency, gender discrimination remains rampant. Only 17 percent of the seats in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s parliament are held by women.13

Independent media outlets have trouble selling advertising because advertisers want to avoid offending the governing elites that grant contracts and provide jobs. Editorial decisions by public service broadcasters often accommodate the political views of governing institutions. The state-level public broadcaster, Bosnian-Herzegovinian Radio Television (BHRT), is in a dire situation financially because the RS is not paying its contribution, while large parts of the FBiH are not collecting license fees. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a huge number of media outlets, more than can be supported by the size of its market, and most of them are controlled by governments at different levels.

The judiciary rarely picks up on reports of corruption and mismanagement by ruling structures published by independent media and civic organizations. Several judges serving on the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and prosecutors from the state Prosecutor’s Office have been suspended from their duties and are under disciplinary investigation, while the president of the court, Ranko Debevec, was arrested alongside former Intelligence-Security Agency (OSA) head Osman Mehmedagić Osmica for allegedly tapping phones of other judges and prosecutors and participating in a conspiracy. Mehmedagić is closely associated with Bakir Izetbegović, the head of the Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and a former Bosniak member of the state presidency, and his wife Sebija Izetbegović, an SDA representative on the Sarajevo Canton assembly. He had been sanctioned by the United States in March 2023 for allegedly abusing his power to benefit the SDA.14

In the Republika Srpska, Dodik was already under US sanctions, and the United States added four more leading politicians to its sanctions list in 2023: Željka Cvijanović, a member of the state presidency; the president of the entity’s parliament, Nenad Stevandić; RS prime minister Radovan Višković; and RS justice minister Miloš Bukejlović.15 The US government later added Dodik’s children to the sanctions list, stating that “Dodik has increased the involvement of his son, Igor Dodik (Igor), and daughter, Gorica Dodik (Gorica), in political and business activities within the RS, causing concern that the RS was becoming more like a Dodik family business rather than a political entity of BiH.”16

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Nations in Transit 2024 Country Report | Freedom House (2024)
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