Don’t Push the Nationalists Into a Vote We’ll Regret

The U.S. should not insist on democratic elections in Bosnia before it is ready. The State Department touts elections--to be held no later than Sept. 15--as a panacea for Bosnia’s political trauma and a necessary milestone before U.S. redeployment (withdrawal), scheduled for December. But the consequences of early elections will most likely be the opposite of what State predicts and may make things worse, requiring a delayed redeployment under riskier conditions. At this point, however, early elections seem inevitable because the Clinton administration wrongheadedly wants this foreign policy “success” to boost President Clinton’s reelection bid.

Many confuse military progress in the Dayton accord’s implementation with political progress. But elections, as planned, would trigger the establishment of Dayton’s blueprint for a new central Bosnian government, and if held this year, would almost certainly validate the nationalist leaders on all sides. We should thus reasonably worry that newly elected nationalist leaders would take advantage of the convoluted constitutional checks on majority power Dayton provides. The result: deadlock. Institutionalizing political deadlock in Bosnia would create additional serious barriers to long-term settlement that ultimately must be dismantled at further cost.

The State Department claims that elections will restore confidence. This could be true only if moderates on all three sides made significant gains. To make that happen, the State Department is giving considerable help to the moderates’ efforts through “soft money.” But as usual, unintended consequences are poised to rear their ugly heads. For every vote the U.S. helps siphon off to moderates from nationalists, the more hard-line the nationalists become, partly as they lose internal ballast to the opposition, and partly as they reach to the fringes, making up for lost votes.

The sad fact is that individuals must exercise great personal and moral courage to vote for a non-ethnic party. They would be accused of diluting the clout of their bloc. It’s unreasonable to expect such altruistic behavior on the part of many Bosnians. Indeed, not even the CIA can rig these elections to get the result we want.

Before the last Bosnian election in 1990, the one non-communist election Bosnia has ever had, moderate candidates got extensive press coverage and polling showed that they had significant support, but support evaporated in the voting booth. About 90% of the electorate voted for their respective nationalist parties. Afterward, given the first opportunity to clash rather than cooperate, nationalist leaders on all sides stoked the fires of hatred. The situation today is analogous, only worse.

The Clinton administration thinks that if elections are not held, a severe blow will be dealt to perceptions of the viability of Bosnia’s peace. It should be anticipated, nevertheless, that flawed elections with unfavorable consequences will be viewed by all concerned--the media, analysts and the Bosnians--as much more a failure than would postponed elections.

To the extent the administration cannot get off the hook, there may still be some middle course. Instead of having half a dozen levels in the elections--from a presidential ballot down to local officials--elections could be restricted to national positions, leaving more contentious parliamentary and local voting until later.

The danger is that by raising expectations that will come to a head just at the time the U.S. begins to redeploy, we put impossible burdens on the post-NATO peacekeeping force, which will presumably be much smaller, with much more limited resources. These are the same conditions that led to the U.N.’s earlier failure and would put whatever U.S. forces remain in Bosnia at considerably greater risk. If we learned anything from the past four years in Bosnia, it should be that the international mission must match available resources.

The Clinton administration, by adopting a complicated social engineering approach, has lost sight of the realistic bottom line for U.S. interests: preventing a renewed outbreak of fighting. We are speaking to the Bosnians in riddles about democracy, but managing to dupe only ourselves.