Third Entity Would Destroy Bosnia’s Croat Political Elite

Their real goal is maintenance of the political status quo, which allows them to stay in power, manage their patronage networks and avoid prosecution.

While most of the Croat population in Bosnia and Herzegovina would support the creation of a separate Croat entity, or even secession, the elites would lose too much to genuinely support such a policy.

While the 1992-5 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was largely about nationalism, conquest and ethnic cleansing, the subsequent peace has been all about patronage networks and personal benefits for untouchable political elites on all three ethnic sides.

Corruption, nepotism, inefficiency and a state of perpetual political crisis are not bugs but key features of the systems built by the 1995 Dayton Accords. As the International Crisis Group ICG think tank explained in its last report on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the economy is largely based on a complex and informal system of patronage and corruption. The civil service is bloated and most jobs in the public and private sectors alike are dependent on the will of party officials.

The appointment of loyal apparatchiks to lucrative directorial positions in public companies, and the subsequent upward flow of money to the political benefactors, is not much different than members of the organized-crime underworld "kicking up" the percentage along the command chain.

It is not hard to see why the political elites would want to maintain such a complex system that gives them political power, economic benefits and protection from legal prosecution.

Who really wants a third entity?

Croatian flags. Photo: Needpix

In the last two decades, since the fall of the ill-fated and short-lived experiment in Croat home rule in...