• The complexity of the political-territorial organization and governance of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) continues to be reflected in the country’s political debates. Since the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995, the administration of BiH has been divided into two entities: the Republika Srpska (RS), with an ethnic majority of Bosnian Serbs, and the Bosniak-Bosnian Croat–majority Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). The FBiH is further divided into 10 cantons, while the Brčko District is directly tied to the state-level government. Consequently, the country’s governance is divided among 14 distinct state, entity, and cantonal level governments. Under these conditions, the decision-making process is extremely complex and difficult, with a huge administrative apparatus that presents not only a financial burden but numerous possible obstructions.
• In 2022, political parties in power at the state and entity levels used their dominant positions and holding power in the political system to block the functioning of key institutions by refusing to assume their posts yet nevertheless attempting to force their views.15 The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), led by the Bosnian state presidency member Milorad Dodik and supported by other political parties from the RS entity, continued to boycott institutions at the state level with only the occasional participation of their representatives in various parliamentary and presidential sessions.16 Some forms of blockade continued even after the formal boycott was lifted in February 2022, such as ignoring the urgent parliamentary session convened in March. Members of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)–led Hrvatski narodni sabor (HNS, Croatian National Assembly) joined delegates from SNSD in the boycott on this occasion.
• Dodik continued to question the existence and functioning of the BiH state.17 He and other RS representatives embraced divisive rhetoric and rendered national laws inapplicable, thus undermining the constitutional framework, which included unilaterally retaking state competences in the fields of defense, indirect taxes, and the judiciary.18 Due to the boycott or inactivity of RS representatives in state institutions, the legislative output at the state level was virtually nonexistent and prevented the adoption of a state budget for a second year.19
• The HDZ continued blocking the new government’s election in the FBiH, stalling processes at the entity level.20 As a result, the FBiH was consigned to a caretaker government for another four years.21
• In April, US and UK officials announced lists of sanctions, including against Dodik and his successor, Željka Cvijanović, for attempts to undermine the legitimacy and functionality of the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina.22 The FBiH prime minister, Fadil Novalić, was added to the list of sanctioned politicians by the US government.23
• Members of the state presidency, responsible for conducting foreign policy, opposed each other. The foreign minister acted independently from the state presidency and in accord with the views of her Party of Democratic Action (SDA), thus rendering Bosnian foreign policy essentially nonexistent. The proposed membership and cooperation with NATO drew objections from Dodik.24 While declaring support for European integration processes, the governing parties failed to fulfill most of the conditions set by the EU. Policy towards Russia, especially following the outbreak of war in Ukraine,25 and the role of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) similarly divided the members of the state presidency.26
• An HDZ politician, Marinko Čavara, who had blocked the nomination of judges and the government in the FBiH for four years as the Federation’s president, and was therefore put on the US government’s blacklist, was elected in December 2022 as deputy leader of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the state Parliamentary Assembly.
• The trend of leaving the country continued among the BiH population. An estimated half million citizens have emigrated since the last census in 2013, and the current population is optimistically estimated at below 3 million.27 This critical situation is a focus for the civic sector and the media, but political parties in power only pay lip service, offering no strategies for dealing with the population crisis.28 In 2022, the unemployment rate fell to 30.7 percent due largely to this mass exodus.29
• In July, the BiH Council of Ministers adopted the first-ever strategy to improve the rights and freedoms of LGBT+ people.30 The action plan for the social inclusion of the Roma was adopted in April.31 Yet political rights remain restricted despite the case law of the ECtHR and its decisions since December 2009.32

• State-level elections for the BiH parliament and presidency, alongside elections for the two sub-state entities (RS and FBiH), were held on October 2, 2022. In addition, the electorate in the FBiH chose representatives in the 10 cantons within the entity. Rules of the election law that discriminate against citizens who live as de facto or de jure minorities in their sub-state entities remained unchanged.33 This complex process of elections occurs every two years, alternating between general and local elections.34
• Again, a lack of political participation was evident in the October general elections, with only 50-percent voter turnout.35 While the electoral process was generally peaceful and orderly, numerous allegations of fraud at polling stations cast doubt on the whole project of citizens’ exercising their democratic will.36 The Central Electoral Commission has submitted 95 reports to the prosecutor’s office since the 2022 general elections were announced.37
• BiH’s election law did not accommodate the prior rulings by the ECtHR that the law is discriminatory against “persons not affiliated with the constituent peoples.”38
• Throughout 2022, EU and US representatives made several attempts to force an agreement to change the election law to accommodate demands of the numerically inferior Croats, represented by their leading nationalist political parties.39 The HDZ’s primary objection was that numerically superior ethnic Bosniaks provide a significant segment of the electoral base of the Croat state presidency member, non-nationalist Željko Komšić. The party’s objections were further supported by examples of politicians with traditional Bosniak names who self-declared as Croats and were allocated seats as Croats in the FBiH House of Peoples—thus, in HDZ’s view, taking spots from Croat representatives and minimizing Croat votes.40
• Bosniak nationalist parties reacted strongly, some non-nationalists joined, and sporadic civic protests, albeit pushed by political parties, dissuaded international representatives from initiating any changes. However, immediately after the polling stations were closed, the High Representative imposed amendments to the election law that nevertheless remained discriminatory towards de facto and de jure minorities.41 Consequently, citizens cast votes according to one set of rules, but the electoral results were applied according to different rules.42 These changes, however, did not address the long-standing rulings of the ECtHR.
• The elections results have been challenged by several participants, including the opposition parties in the RS entity, whose candidate, Jelena Trivić, announced victory in the race for RS President,43 only to be proven wrong. She subsequently claimed a stolen victory due to later-documented voting irregularities.44
• Civil society electoral observers found 374 irregularities during the campaign and general elections, some of them minor and relying on hearsay evidence. However, it was found that those in power had used public resources, pressured media and civil society, and traded positions on the committees at polling stations.45 Allegations of fraud were directed at polling station committees since, without the use of ballot scanning and electronic voter identification, there was ample space to manipulate results.46
• The Central Electoral Commission made confusing statements following the general elections, one member contradicting the other and the commission’s president wrongly announcing some results.47 The commission submitted 44 reports to the prosecutor’s office “due to the grounded suspicion that a criminal offense had been committed.”48 Commission members were also split on how to resolve complaints regarding indirect elections for the various Houses of Peoples at the entity and state levels.

• The Ministry of Justice registry noted 25,646 active civic associations and foundations as of December 2022.49 However, civil society has limited influence on powerholders in BiH. The number of organizations is all-inclusive, mixing sports associations with scientific organizations, human rights groups, taxi drivers associations, and others with minimal presence in public life and media, and inadequate financial resources.
• The governing political parties continued to manipulate the civic sector by supporting those organizations they initially set up. Government-organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs) and quasi-autonomous NGOs (QUANGOs) dilute the public scene and activities of the civic sector. For example, the leading Croat populist party, HDZ, created Hrvatski narodni sabor (HNS, Croatian People’s Assembly) that included other Croat political parties and was registered as a citizen association. HDZ leader Dragan Čović often acts as a leader of this NGO but makes clear political demands that coincide with the views of his political party.
• During the year, political apathy in the wider society was disturbed only when nationalist parties saw the possible use of citizens to strengthen their position in negotiations with international envoys over changes to the election law. Civic protests in Sarajevo were exploited by Bosniak political parties, while the official organizers were promoted as an “informal group of citizens.”50
• Trade unions organized miner strikes in the FBiH in September, while some miners in the RS took similar actions two months later.51 Several other sectors in both entities showed similar concerns, including teachers, health workers, and border officials, among others.52
• Instead of judicial and government institutions, it is the civic sector that attempts to struggle against corruption and conflicts of interest in the country. Transparency International BiH filed a complaint with the Commission for Deciding on Conflict of Interest against then state presidency member Milorad Dodik, stating that companies owned by his family do business with the state and receive incentives from the budget.53
• The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN), Transparency International BiH, and the Center for the Environment sued the RS Ministry of Transport “for violating the law and hiding a document, which is a public good, and in all three cases, the Court found that the decline was unlawful, indicating that it is the information of which the public needs to be informed.”54 However, the ministry reacted with impunity and ignored the court rulings.
• Discrimination, exclusion, violence, invisibility, and isolation are problems the LGBT+ community faces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As the last country in the Balkans to observe Pride, BiH held its third such event in Sarajevo in June, which went off peacefully but with heavy police protection.55 A counterprotest attracted a few extremists citing religious and nationalist reasons for opposing the LGBT+ celebration.
• Dozens of mainly women demonstrated in several Bosnian cities demanding protection and recognition of femicide in Bosnian criminal legislation. A woman’s violent death in Bihać initiated the protests. This event came on top of several reported violent acts against women in the country and estimates that 60 women throughout BiH were killed by their husbands since 2015.56
• The unfortunate insignificance of women’s groups in the society is reflected in domestic and foreign policy. The ignorance of state leaders was shown in December when Foreign Minister Bisera Turković hosted her Iranian counterpart and held a press conference showing support for the regime in Tehran while most of the world condemned Iran for violence against women.57

• The media market in BiH remained oversaturated in 2022. Many outlets are dependent on noncommercial sources of funding, thus creating possibilities for authorities to exercise undue influence at various levels. Beyond the pressures exerted by editors and political actors, journalists were also exposed to frequent violence, including occasional physical attacks. Furthermore, perennial crises in the function and administration of the country’s public broadcasters continued to go unresolved.
• Five daily newspapers are published in BiH,58 as well as three Bosnian editions of dailies published in Serbia or Croatia.59 There are more than a hundred periodical publications.60
• The public service broadcasters—BHRT at the state level; FTV and RTRS in the entities—share the market with 14 public and 23 private licensed broadcasters for terrestrial frequency, while a further 77 broadcasters use other means of transmission.61 There are 148 licensed radio stations,62 and thousands of online outlets.63
• The media depend on public financing and are susceptible to political pressure. Some independent media outlets survive, such as the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN), Žurnal, Inforadar, and Istraga, providing investigative journalism.64 The independent online outlet “6yka” in Banja Luka offers other critical perspectives.
• Due to mismanagement and politically motivated decisions, the TV license fee revenue collected in the RS has not been transferred to the state broadcaster for several years, depriving it of the equivalent of €32.2 million.
• The lack of online content filtering undermines the professional standards of many outlets and provides a platform for fake news and insult. Fake bomb threats targeted schools and institutions in the RS and the state capital Sarajevo.65 The EU military force in BiH, EUFOR, described reports that it had arrested Milorad Dodik for corruption, published by the widely read Serbian newspaper Srpski Telegraf, as “nonsense and a completely baseless story.”66
• Social networks are used to spread fake news and warmongering. An SNSD member of the Parliamentary Assembly, Dušanka Majkić, tweeted that “Bosnia could suffer the same consequences as attacked Ukraine if it joins NATO,” along with a fake video later debunked by the Bosnian fact-checking portal Raskrinkavanje.67 Media from the RS have avoided using terms like “aggression,” “invasion,” or even “war” to describe Russia’s attack on Ukraine, with some instead echoing Russian president Vladimir Putin’s terminology, “special military operation.”68
• BiH journalists reported 18 cases of death threats, physical attacks, and hate speech during the year, an increase of 137 percent from 2021. There was a 40-percent increase in political and verbal threats to journalists by officials in 2022 alone. None of the cases were investigated by authorities.69 More than 30 physical and verbal attacks on journalists and the media were registered by the association BH Novinari [BH Journalists] during the year.70
• Public companies influence media editorial policies through advertising practices, thus harming media integrity. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) fuel self-censorship and threaten media outlets’ financial survival.71 Foreign investors use the same tactics. The EU delegation in Sarajevo was urged to condemn SLAPPs filed against local activists by a Belgian company over the environmental impact of their hydropower plant built near the capital. This open letter was signed by 140 organizations from BiH, Europe, and the United States.72
• BiH courts and the prosecutor’s office often ignore the public’s access-to-information requests. According to a Transparency International BiH analysis, authorities have not responded within the prescribed deadline to almost half of the requests.73

• The viability of local self-government in BiH continues to be highly dependent on events at the national level. In 2022, municipal heads continued to bend rules to accommodate private investors close to the official’s party ranks.
• The RS entity has 54 municipalities and 10 cities,74 whereas the FBiH entity has 56 municipalities and 22 cities.75 The practice of incorporating municipalities into cities, purportedly to enjoy more access to funds and enhanced appeal to investors, continued during the year following a brief pause in 2020–21. One new city was created in the RS, whereas six were formed in the FBiH.
• Many local governments have a surplus of public employees, which monopolizes a large percentage of municipal and city budgets on wages.
• The decentralized local government system does not always provide a better quality of services for citizens. A case from Sarajevo showed that authorities at the local borough, city, and cantonal levels often abandoned their oversight of the education system. In this incident, a person convicted for a lewd act towards a minor continued teaching physical education in a Sarajevo primary school despite the one-year ban against him, and his one-year prison sentence was converted into a financial penalty.76
• A discriminatory practice of “two schools under one roof” that segregated children of Croat and Bosniak ethnicity attending separate schools in the same building has not changed despite efforts by the civic sector.77 Children in 56 schools in 3 cantons—Central Bosnia, Zenica-Doboj, and Hercegovina-Neretva—were subjected to segregated education. Those of Serb or other non-Croat or non-Bosniak ethnicity had a choice to attend either of the two schools under the same roof providing different educational programs.78 Discrimination continued in the RS educational system, where Bosniak children in some municipalities were denied instruction in the Latin alphabet and their own Bosnian language.79
• Murals of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić that appeared in the past on walls in municipalities of the RS entity have added the letter “Z” (a pro-Russia symbol) following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Local authorities have taken no action to remove them, including in the RS capital Banja Luka.80
• In 2022, ethnic extremism turned to violent vandalization in Mostar, the FBiH capital, where all monuments at the anti-fascist Partisan Cemetery were desecrated and destroyed. Similar actions have occurred since the 1990s, but local authorities have never responded adequately.81
• Mostar City Hall finally decided to change the names of streets named after Nazi leaders from World War II. Sarajevo authorities did not change the name of a school and several streets named after “antisemites, fascist ideologues, Nazi and fascist collaborators.” Some streets in Banja Luka are named after World War II nationalist Nazi collaborators.82

• The complex judicial system in BiH reflects the political model of the state and operates at several administrative levels: national, two entities, and the Brčko District, each with their own separate judiciaries. This, coupled with 10 cantonal court systems in the FBiH, has resulted in an inefficient system where jurisdictions are not clearly delineated.
• The independence and impartiality of the judiciary did not improve in 2022, according to the European Commission.83 Courts are subject to political pressure. As just one example, the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina postponed the corruption trial of FBiH Prime Minister Fadil Novalić due to health issues, even though he was attending political party functions during the same period.
• In October, High Representative Christian Schmidt imposed changes to the FBiH constitution enabling the election of four judges to the FBiH Constitutional Court. The process was previously blocked for three years by FBiH President Marinko Čavara’s refusal to nominate candidates, leaving the court with only five of the required nine judges.84
• In May, the Chief Prosecutor of the RS, Mahmut Švraka, was demoted and replaced due to negligence of his post, following a similar instance the previous year at the state level.85
• In May, the state Parliamentary Assembly rejected amendments to establish an asset declaration system for judges, prosecutors, and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC).
• Despite a report released in June by the House of Representatives finding a marked deterioration in judicial integrity and public trust in the courts, a new Justice Sector Reform Strategy for 2021–27 and the related action plan were not adopted.
• In June, the Constitutional Court of BiH annulled a series of December 2021 decisions by RS authorities that aimed to transfer the authorities, competences, and jurisdiction of indirect taxation, defense, and the judiciary from the state level to the RS entity.86 The practice of disrespecting decisions of the Constitutional Court of BiH continued nonetheless. Milorad Dodik, at the time a member of the state presidency, reacted to the Constitutional Court’s decision by saying that, regardless of the decision, the RS “will continue to do what it considers is best for it.”87
• RS Day was again celebrated by the entity’s authorities on January 9 despite rulings by the Constitutional Court of BiH barring the holiday’s observance in 2015 and 2019.88 Capital punishment has still not been removed from the RS constitution89 despite the entity government’s announcement in the past that it would do so after the Constitutional Court of BiH ordered its removal in 2019.90
• Justice system institutions and elected officials in BiH continue to ignore requirements for transparency. More than two years after inviting applications, the state presidency did not appoint candidates for a judge to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Expert committees at the Council of Europe and positions in several international organizations remain without Bosnians only because BiH institutions have not sent lists of candidates.91

• Endemic corruption continued to plague BiH in 2022. Ongoing anticorruption activities were primarily conducted by civil society, NGOs, and the media. At the same time, government institutions refrained from showing any interest or desire to tackle this long-standing and widespread issue. Anticorruption legislation remains largely unharmonized between the various levels of government, so any available anticorruption mechanisms are ineffective, compounded by the lack of political will and judicial independence.92
• For the third year, the BiH court case continued against FBiH Prime Minister Fadil Novalić, Minister of Finances Jelka Miličević, head of the Civil Protection Service Fahrudin Solak, and Fikret Hodžić, owner of the raspberry-producing company that was awarded an infamously speculative contract to purchase ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic. The indicted PM, Fadil Novalić, has remained in office despite calls for his resignation and likely may only be removed from office by a change of government.93
• The state Parliamentary Assembly rejected the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in May.94 The law was in line with international standards and adopted in the lower House of Representatives, but HDZ and SNSD delegates in the upper House of Peoples blocked it. A new version of the proposal entered the state parliament in November. However, the proposed changes exempted state-level elected officials from prohibitions on holding private companies that work with the state, as well as sitting on management boards for associations and foundations financed from public budgets.95
• Lower levels of government had a faster procedure: the FBiH government approved the draft law in August. The reaction of the US Embassy was telling: “The United States welcomes the FBiH government’s approval of the Prevention of Conflict of Interest and Whistleblower Protection Laws, but frankly, the FBiH government should have approved these laws much earlier.”96 A new anticorruption and conflict of interest law was adopted in Sarajevo Canton and will enter into force on January 1, 2023. It will prevent politicians from being elected to political posts while continuing as public company directors.97
• In addition to several public officials, the most prominent person accused of forging her university degree was Sebija Izetbegović, director of University Hospital Sarajevo, whose husband, Bakir Izetbegović, leads the SDA, the strongest political party in BiH. Izetbegović has been investigated by the university and the cantonal prosecutors for over a year, with no final verdict. Meanwhile, she was elected to the Assembly of Sarajevo Canton as media continued to report on the investigation, with little information made public.98

Author: Neven Anđelić teaches international relations and human rights at Regent’s University, London. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Saarland. He served on the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Council of Europe, in 2014–18. Dr Anđelić was a Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to academic activities, he is an activist on human rights issues. He had an early career in journalism, including with CNN and the BBC, and continues to publish in Bosnian media. Dr Anđelić has published two books in the English language titled “Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy” (Frank Cass Publishers, 2003) and “COVID-19, State-Power and Society in Europe: Focus on Western Balkans” (Springer, 2022).