Election day

First off, on one front the votes are in. That is regarding this blog as several of you older readers have asked for a background change... democracy wins. But much more importantly it is actually election day here in Bosnia. In talking to only a few people here (some American, some Bosnian) a lot of the same issues came up that come up in a lot of democratic elections: voter apathy- especially among youth, corrupt politicians, bad economy getting worse- the need for job development, in some ways, the usual. Of course in many other ways not the usual at all. As one of the articles below points out there are 8,000 candidates for 4 million people which is one of many factors that leads to voters being overwhelmed, confused, or apathetic. But I feel that I'm getting ahead of myself because I am still rather ill-informed about the details of all the political parties and the implications of the potential outcomes of this election. So, I suggest that you read some of the articles I have below if you want or Google yourself up some more.

an article from the NY Times

transcript from PBS

an article from BBC

an article from The Economist

I do have some pictures and snippets to share of some of my experiences with the election so far. I mentioned corrupt politicians

before and also how the elections were in many ways not usual, which brings us back to my first day here. One of the Fulbright scholars here pointed out this poster on the street, talking about how he was involved with his trial for war crimes at the ICTY. Welcome to politics in the Balkans.

He was acquitted of the charges, but still.

Next up is a rally that I stumbled upon for the SBB party or "The Alliance for a Better Future".

I heard cheering and someone on a microphone so I walked over. It was of course all in Bosnian so I had no idea what they were saying but it was interesting because all of the people who I was standing with were more just kind of staring. It was only the people up at the very front who were cheering. I'm not sure if the people in the back didn't care or specifically didn't support that party but the people up front were pretty pumped to be there.

Last night, I was (again) wandering through old town when I found that they (some organization?) was showing a movie in one of the open square areas. They had a fancy screen and folding chairs set up. It was mostly kids and families who were watching so I was pretty excited to see what movie it was. I tried to look as I turned the corner and I saw it was a cartoon with a panoramic view of an old city built in the desert--Aladdin, right? No, it was the story of the history of Muhammad (then I realized it was set up in front of a mosque. Still it was in English and I wanted to learn so I sat on down. A fair amount of people would stop and sit watch a bit and leave or stand in the back and watch. It was really nice and clearly all the kids were super psyched because it's a cartoon outside! I actually watched for a long time, it was a really good movie. There was some commotion of people yelling and cheering coming down a side street. As I looked I could see all the red banners of the SDP party. I was very curious to see what would happen next.

I'm not sure why I think this but I think what did happen would never happen in America. The parade came on down and the leaders up front shushed everyone, and they all quieted down, stopped blowing their whistles and quietly paraded on through. I thought that was incredibly respectful of a political party on the eve of the election. So, like I said before, maybe not so usual.

If you look close you can even the guy on the left shushing the crowd.