When the Dust Settles: Reflections on Bosnia’s Protests and Plena

As the force that brought people onto Bosnia’s streets and saw the formation of citizens’ ‘plena’ around the country earlier this year appears to fade, Cera Murtagh considers what that movement has achieved

The social protests that erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina this February came as a dramatic development that caught many an observer off guard.  As burning public buildings gave way to peaceful protest and the birth of citizens’ assemblies, commentators grappled to explain what this meant for the future of the country. Perspectives ran the full range, from heralding the movement as the long awaited revolution that could transform the post-Dayton state from the bottom-up, to dismissing it as an inconsequential anti-establishment demonstration. Now, some four months on, as the protests and plena appear to have lost momentum, some space for reflection has opened up. So what, if anything, can the movement be said to have achieved?

From the street to the plenum 

The protests began in early February in the industrial north eastern town of
Tuzla, as people took to the streets to express their anger at mass unemployment, factory closures and corrupt privatisations. The unrest quickly spread to towns and cities from Mostar to Bihac, where frustration with joblessness, poverty, government corruption and a bloated and dysfunctional political system established by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, found resonance.  Within days direct democratic fora in the shape of ‘plena’ were being established to translate the grievances of the protests into concrete demands and take those demands to the political institutions – local, cantonal and Federation (one of Bosnia’s two sub-state entities) governments. Demands focused on social and economic rights and political accountability, including improved welfare benefits, an end to excessive perks for politicians and a review of privatisation deals.  An impressive – and unexpected - manifestation of direct democracy, in a post-war state where civil society has been notably weak. But what has come as a result?

Tangible changes

First and foremost, one can look to tangible changes on the ground.  Some quick wins were secured in the wake of the initial unrest, as four cantonal governments resigned and some agreed to end certain benefits and privileges, such as the notorious ‘white bread’ perk, where cantonal ministers could continue to receive their salaries for a year after leaving their posts. In Tuzla Canton an ‘expert government’ has been installed and is reportedly working in cooperation with the plenum. The wider world also took notice, with the international community signalling its support and the EU announcing a shift in approach towards BiH to focus more on social and economic reforms than elite negotiation over constitutional changes. Arising from a civil movement only a few weeks old, these achievements should not be underplayed.

The question of political engagement 

But the question of broader political change is a more complex one.  Indeed, this has been a point of tension between the movement and Bosnia’s more formalised civil society, in the shape of its NGO sector.


Meeting of the Sarajevo Plenum, February 2014

Some in the sector, having worked for years towards constitutional change and political reform, saw the protests and plena as a unique opportunity to drive that agenda forward and transform Bosnia’s dysfunctional post-Dayton institutions from the bottom up.  Indeed, as representative of the Tuzla plenum Jasmina Husanović told a recent Sarajevo Peace Event discussion, elements of the international community have also encouraged the plenum to form its own political party in order to effect political change.  

Those in the plena, however, had other ideas.  Plenum demands were born locally, out of the problems in people’s everyday lives, and remained so. They focused on basic social and economic rights – so-called ‘bread and butter issues’ - and were directed primarily at the local, cantonal and, to a limited extent, federal level of government. There was a strong reluctance within the plena to engage in high politics, and certainly to enter the debate on constitutional reform.  Any suggestion of forming a political party or backing an existing party in the October elections to state, entity and cantonal institutions met with resolute resistance at meetings. In a movement born out of disillusion with, and disdain for, politics the lack of appetite for political engagement should hardly surprise.  

This lack of engagement with the political process became a source of frustration for some in the NGO sector, however. Some felt that by focusing on the symptoms of Bosnia’s problems – the social - and not the causes – the political, i.e. the Dayton system – the plena could change nothing.  Furthermore, in an election year, they saw the failure influence the outcome of those elections - and catalyse the civil movement into concrete political change - as a major missed opportunity.

The reasons for the plena’s reluctance to enter the fray of formal politics must be examined a little more closely, however. The perils of translating demands that emerge organically from people on the streets into a broader political movement cannot be underestimated.  As Svjetlana Nedimović, participant of the Sarajevo protests and attendee of the Sarajevo Plenum, articulated at the Sarajevo Peace Event, at this embryonic stage any attempt to catalyse the civic movement into a political one would have been risky. Such a move could have divided the broad-based movement, derailing it before it had gotten fully off the ground. It has been argued that participation in the October elections – either through a new party or cooperation with existing ‘civic’ parties – could have proved fatal, in the event of a poor showing or failure to follow through on promises thereafter.

A civic awakening?

It could equally be argued that engagement in the political process, even if likely to fail, is the only way to achieve change - and in any case, the movement has ground to a halt anyway.  But many participants in the protests and plena feel that though it may have gone away for now, this was only the first wave; a civic platform has been created that can be built upon in future. What’s more, an awakening has taken place in the minds of the people that they can do something to change their social and political reality – a fact which has also dawned on the political elite. While this shift in mindsets could be politically instrumentalised at a later date - perhaps for the 2016 local elections – many feel this point is too soon; it must first be allowed to develop as a civic movement.  

When viewed from the perspective of concrete political change, or indeed improvement of people’s living conditions, at this point, Bosnia’s protests and plena could be assessed to have had a relatively limited impact. However, if one looks a little deeper, this could be the potential first step in a longer term democratic shift.