General elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina are at hand, once more in series since the end of the aggression (1996), and still with the same players, the same people, the same political parties, the same pre-election messages and the same (false) promises. What the government (previous, present and also future) do not want to see, with their heads persistently stuck in the sand, is the following.
Bosnia-Herzegovina has more than a million citizens who are capable of work but cannot find adequate jobs. More than 250.000 of them are working but without salary. The number of unemployed has increased over the last four years with more than 60.000 persons, and the number of employed has decreased with 5.000. In Albania, a country that was a sample of backwardness to us, the employment rate is now more than twice as large as the rate in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 45 percent of the young people in Bosnia-Herzegovina are unemployed. As many as 77 percent of them want to leave the country. In the last 15 years, more than 100.000 youngsters in age 30 already did that.
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina do not understand (or they do not want to understand) what consequences the slowness of the EU integration process has on the social and economic position of the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The domestic government has not been capable of fulfilling their promise of signing and implementing a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union before the end of 2007. The government has also not been capable of fulfilling more than 40 specific requests as a part of the Road map and the Study of Feasibility, even after six years spent in the EU integration process. Today we are farther away from joining the European Union than we were four years ago.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is on the 38th place of the 40 ranged European countries in the implementation of Bologna process. Investments in science are minimal, about 0,2%. Public consumption is the biggest in the region and is 50% of the brute national income. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the number of state institutions and the number of employees in it increases every year. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, 42% of the employees work in the public sector, which is much more than in any other well-developed country in Europe. There exists five levels of government in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which makes it the country with the most complex government structure in Europe. The public administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina spends around 450 million euro per year.
At the same time, less than 5% of the population is high educated in Bosnia-Herzegovina. For certain years, nobody follows the study results. There is no quality appraisal. There are no development projects. There are no new technologies. There is no employment or newly created value. If these conditions stay the same, Bosnia-Herzegovina will bankrupt soon.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is part of a grey zone of countries where corruption is spreading. As a cause of tender deceits, Bosnia-Herzegovina loses more than 40 million euro per year. On average, citizens need 1.500 euro for health care per year, often spent to pay corrupt medical staff for urgent medical services.
While the country is in such a catastrophic condition, politicians and political parties still have nothing to offer to the Bosnian voters than their worthless promises. In a country where there is a higher tax on food, medicine and books than on exclusive cars, they still spend great quantities of the taxpayers’ money on their pre-election gatherings. Again, they organise pre-election caravans that visit poor Bosnian citizens with ‘song and play’, with only one hope – that they will succeed in ‘stealing’ some votes for the following elections, votes that will help them to ‘mount’ again, and to spend four more years in the comfortable parliament, in the representative house or on ministry chairs, naturally, with solid salaries, daily wages, and more solid cabinets and secretaries, and most solid cars and drivers.
Elections are close, and it is up to us, citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to choose. It is up to Europe to close her borders even more severely, just in case someone tries to run away from the reservation…