Bosnia and Herzegovina General Elections, 2010: Analysis of Pre-Election Rhetoric

Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a postconflict and transitional country with sui generis political system of low efficiency, creates and conducts its politics in a specific ambient of reduced sovereignty and responsibility of domestic institutions and other political subjects. Such political ambient is suitable to proliferation of nationalistic, confrontational and anti-constitutional rhetoric and practices, which reach its peak during period of pre-election campaigns.Unfinished legislative election framework, purposeful obstruction of international election standards and domestic legislative on behalf of most of political subjects, deficiency of professional and independent media, undeveloped civic society, and politicized and undercapacitated institutions which are involved with subject of regularity of the election process, are the reason for lack of candidate's will for constitutional, legislative and ethical behavious during pre-election campaign.Due to this, pre-election campaign of most of political subjects is mainly negative, and not focused on elementary questions of standard of living and priority challenges of state and society (necessary constitutional reforms, Euro-Atlantic integrations, structural economic reforms, unemployment etc.), but on mutual confrontations, stress on big political questions of the status of entities and constituent nations, then on nationalistic rhetorics of negating consitutional and historical facts, and on mutual ungrounded discreditation, which generates atmosphere of fear, national homogenization and searching of the culprit for bad situation in society, inside of other national corpus, and not among own political representtatives.