Memories of a Common Past

It would be right on target to recall the results of a poll conducted by the Sarajevo daily "OSLOBODJENJE" and the Department of Journalism of the Political Sciences Faculty to mark the first anniversary of the new authorities . One should be warned, however, that the views of the pollees should be taken with reservation, due to the time distance and other distances established in the meantime, but we are sure that some assessments, especially those under common sins, would be even blacker than in November, 1991.

Even then, 77% of the pollees, assessing the new authorities, was for new elections. Publishing the results of the opinion poll, both the OSLOBODJENJE editorial board and the research team warned of the influence of the psychological factors which make up the so-called "triple Bosnian spirit", built on cautiousness in publicly expressing one's genuine beliefs, popularly interpreted as: "think one thing, say another, and do something third", which not even the most sophisticated methodological procedures can match, and which (it was crystal-clear even then) the three ethnic parties accepted as the creed of their rule. It was necessary to cite this factor as an extenuating circumstance in interpreting the results because a great number of the pollees expressed a desire not only to answer the questions, but also to write messages to party leaders in the margins of the questionnaire, accusing them of deception, or (some were not quite to harsh) of not behaving according to the party platforms with which they won the elections a year ago. Forty-three percent said the new government's performance was below their expectations, while only 8% thought that it exceeded their expectations. It is important to stress that 54% of the polled had voted for one of the three ruling parties, and almost one fourth were their members.

The citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina assessed the new government mostly failed in the domain of the economic (75%) and social (66%) policies. Next on the list were negative assessments of the government's attitude regarding social services and human rights and the rule of law (62%), the definition of the Republic's constitutional order (57%), the preservation of peace in B&H (50%), equality between the peoples (49%), the media and freedom of the press (44%), the development of the private sector (33%)... Answering these questions, the pollees were allowed to mark several answers. Three quarters of the people polled estimated that in the proximate future they would be worse off than they were then, mostly due to the new regime. And nobody even thought about war.

It would not be correct to omit the fact that the pollees, aside from the above-mentioned assessments, wrote the reasons which they believe contributed to the new government's poor performance. The most frequent were: the inherited bad economic situation, the general situation in Yugoslavia, but also discord between the parties concerning certain issues, which prevented the timely adoption of adequate measures and their implementation. The pollees pointed out that the blame should be distributed, especially to the former government and the army leadership. Grading from one to five the Parliament, the Government and the Presidency, and leading figures of these institutions, the pollees showed a very critical frame of mind. The Parliament got the lowest average grade (not even 2.0). The Government got 2.2, while the Presidency (then with all its members) fared slightly better, with a grade of 2.4. The heads of these institutions passed similarly. Presidency President Alija Izetbegovic got 3.30, which was the highest average grade of all.

The ruling parties fared better overall than the said institutions, but then the people's expectations were much higher as well. Only 13.55% of the polled thought that the parties had fulfilled their election promises, 40.2% said partly, 19% could not say, while as much as 27% gave them a negative rating. When asked whether the party for which they had voted did more, less or as much as they had expected, the pollees answered as follows: more - 13.55%, less - 43.46%, as much as expected - 25.70%. Of the pollees 20.72% voted for SDA, 21.03% for SDS and 13.24% for HDZ, while 28% voted for the opposition parties (6% did not vote at the first multi-party elections in B&H).

A separate block of questions was dedicated to disputed issues: the sovereignty of B&H, regionalization, demilitarization, secession and neutrality. In favor of the republic's sovereignty were 89% of the polled Croats, 88% of the Moslems, 24% of the Serbs (53.3% were against) and 56.3% of the Yugoslavs. In favor of secession from Yugoslavia were 40.6% of the polled Croats (43.7% were against), 33.8% of the Moslems (46.2% - against), 4.0% of the Serbs (82.9% - against), and 7.8% of the Yugoslavs (76.6% - against). Subsequent political developments showed that the different ethnic groups, i.e. the voters of their respective ethnic parties, each regarded sovereignty in their own way. Obviously, some thought of sovereignty within the now already former Yugoslavia, others preferred absolute sovereignty. As regards regionalization, except for the pollees of Serbian nationality, of whom as much as 48.2% came out in favor of it (31.2% were against), the members of the other ethnic groups were against it in more than 80% of the cases. A considerable number of pollees (ranging from 12.5% of the Croats to 21.4% of the Yugoslavs) did not have an opinion on the issue.