ABSTRACT
International agencies organised and ran Bosnian elections until 2002. Most
notably, they chose the rules for all elections (municipal, cantonal, Entity
level and presidential) until the adoption of a permanent election law in
August 2001. The consociational institutional structure, described in the
previous chapter, set important constraints on successive election rules by
prescribing a high degree of proportionality in the ratio of votes to seats in electoral outcomes. Proportional electoral rules allow for the representation
of all major groups in society and the consolidation of strong party leader-
ship (both key consociational prescriptions), but at the cost of favouring
electoral competition along ethno-national lines and encouraging extreme
party fragmentation. Both the resulting nationalist parties’ predominance
and party fragmentation hindered effective governance and led interna-
tional agencies to intervene increasingly in the local political process. Para-
doxically, instead of increasing politicians’ accountability and responsibility vis-a`-vis their constituencies, elections have entangled international agencies
further in the complexities of Bosnian politics.
