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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Bosnia's Alliance for (Smallish) Change
August 2, 2002
Abstract
Put together under the tutelage of representatives of the international community in the aftermath of the November 2000 general elections, the ten-party coalition known as the Democratic Alliance for Change has governed the larger of Bosnia & Herzegovina's two entities and led the state-level Council of Ministers since early 2001. Intended by its sponsors and members to sideline the three nationalist parties that had fought the 1992-95 war and ruled their respective pieces of BiH thereafter, the Alliance was also expected to undertake thoroughgoing reforms and to provide proof that implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords might yet produce a viable state.
This alliance of Federation-based parties of disparate size, ideological orientation and national coloration has cooperated at state level with parties from Republika Srpska that are both in power and in opposition in that entity. The Alliance has thus lacked cohesion on both levels of government. It has sought to push a reform agenda, but one that cannot help but reflect the lowest common denominator of what is acceptable to its different sets of partners in the Federation and the Council of Ministers. Changes acceptable to the Federation parties have often proved anathema to those from the RS. Even in the Federation, the Alliance has had difficulty in carrying with it the cantonal governments that are meant to be under its control.
