International Electoral Experience in the Balkans
Lessons for Kosovo

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Statement by Ambassador Robert H. Frowick

International IDEA, Stockholm
September 6, 2000

It is an honor to return to Stockholm to reflect on lessons learned from the OSCE experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina for possible application in Kosovo. I would like to pay respect to this city and this country for its exceptionally strong contribution to the Bosnian peace process, including even providing the first High Representative in Sarajevo, the distinguished former Prime Minister, Carl Bildt.

Goals, Strategies and Tactics

I believe it essential in launching peacemaking missions like those in Bosnia and Kosovo, to begin with as clear and realistic conceptualization as possible of goals, strategies and tactics. With respect to Bosnia, OSCE was asked to assume tasks that I considered goals in three categories of activity. Under the General Framework Agreement for Peace negotiated at Dayton, Annex 1B called for OSCE implementation of Confidence and Security Building and arms control measures; Annex 3 for proactive democratization and supervision of the electoral process; and Annex 6 for working alongside UN and other organizations in monitoring and reporting on human rights issues. My thoughts today on the electoral process are my own and not those of OSCE or the United States Government.

In October November 1995 OSCE was learning of these tasks as they were being formulated in the Dayton negotiations and brought to the attention of a Mission Task Force for Bosnia established by then Chairman-in-Office, Foreign Minister Kovacs of Hungary. The Task Force, which met in the OSCE Secretariat facilities in Vienna, proved an exceptionally useful mechanism for developing an early vision of responsibilities, and a conceptual framework for meeting them. I would regard it as a model to be emulated in future efforts to prepare such missions.

We developed an organizational structure to create a chain-of-command and deployment of cadres that would be needed in Bosnia, and we began to strategize plans for achieving the tasks set forth at Dayton. It should be recalled that ours was a pioneering endeavor of unprecedented scope and complexity in the OSCE experience. We had to be creative.

Of immense help to me, at the outset of our work in January 1996, was the exchange of views at the Informal Meeting of Elections Experts here in Stockholm. Those of us headed for Sarajevo with little or no prior experience in supervising elections profited tremendously from the Stockholm discussions.

Also, an International Elections Experts Group headed by Canada’s Ron Gould provided our Mission with invaluable advice. Indeed, that group’s Final Report of January 1996 served as an indispensable addition to Peace Agreement provisions for shaping an electoral process with integrity. Some of that same group of experts has provided advice for what I regard as less complex but more dangerous electoral challenges in Kosovo. We recruited Jeff Fischer from this entourage to serve as Director General for Elections in Bosnia, where he did an exceptionally outstanding job in my opinion. And I believe we owe him unstinting support in his role alongside OSCE Head of Mission Daan Everts under the leadership of Bernard Kouchner in Kosovo.

The tactical approach that we adopted in Bosnia centered on respect for the legitimate interests of indigenous parties on all sides – Bosnian Serbs and Croats as well as Muslims – but firmness in implementing essentials.

A Balance of Momentum and Integrity

In my view, the Dayton prescription for elections within so few months after the war was illusory. "Free and fair and democratic" elections were to be held within 6 to 9 months from the 14 December 1995 signing of the peace agreement in Paris. And they were ostensibly to take place under substantive conditions of freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of movement and a neutral political environment. Clearly, achieving such conditions would take considerable time. I considered elections as the most productive early stage of that process.

I thought we should apply a rule of reason and simply do the best we could to achieve this pivotally important aspect of the peace process aimed at transforming wartime arrangements into new institutions of governance elected by the people.

Early in 1996, I drafted a Mission "Democratization Strategy" to begin work on the four substantive conditions called for as well as eight administrative measures – like the guarantee of a secret ballot – laid out in the 1990 CSCE Copenhagen Document. Our progress toward achieving these goals would, in my judgement, reflect the integrity of the electoral process.

To stimulate momentum, we took many steps from the outset. We rapidly built up our Mission from four International Staff – myself and three others – in late December 1995 to 400 by May 1996. Communications and Transportation capabilities were swiftly brought to bear thanks decisively to prodigious support from the Swiss Chairmanship of OSCE. We opened a Head Office in Sarajevo, six Regional Centers, and 25 Field Offices. Before a Peace Implementation Conference mid-term assessment session at Florence on June 14^th, the Mission had been brought up to sufficient strength, I thought, to supervise effectively an electoral process.

We had established a functioning Provisional Election Commission before the end of January and adopted initial rules and regulations by mid-February. We decided to create a Political Parties Consultative Commission open to the full spectrum of parties and independent candidates. We established an Election Appeals Sub-Commission, on the recommendation of Ron Gould and company, to enforce compliance with our rules and regulations and adjudicate complaints. And we set up a Media Experts Commission to help steer a Mission media development program designed to help level the playing field for all the candidates vying for election.

Meantime, Jeff Fischer and his staff were working with very imperfect data from previous elections in 1990 to develop a Voters List. I learned that this list would be of critical importance in the unfolding of an effective electoral process – another lesson for preparing elections in Kosovo.

It fell to me at Florence, as OSCE Head of Mission, whether or not to recommend proceeding with the elections. I proposed, in light of the momentum we had achieved, even in making a start toward substantive objectives, that the voting should take place on September 14^th exactly nine months after signature of the Peace Agreement.

Before leaving Florence, Swiss Foreign Minister Cotti and I agreed on the necessity of doing something about Radovan Karadzic’s continuing to hold the Presidency of Republika Srpska and of the Serbs’ principal political party, the SDS, despite being indicted for war crimes by the ICTY and refusing to appear before that Tribunal. I spoke with Carl Bildt, the High Representative, who indicated he had a plan for dealing with the issue.

As it turned out, Carl concentrated on stripping Karadzic of his governmental powers, and I of Karadzic’s party leadership – something I deemed essential before commencement of the official electoral campaign on July 19^th. At the eleventh hour, Richard Holbrooke visited the region and hammered out an agreement with Serb leaders in Belgrade that removed Karadzic from public life completely. That agreement enabled us to start the campaign with a significant boost to its integrity.

The Importance of Will

This determined confrontation over Karadzic illustrates the importance of mustering the will to face down nationalistic opposition to international peace efforts.

Let me offer another example. In summer 1997, Biljana Plavsic, who had succeeded Karadzic as RS President, became increasingly exasperated with corrupt practices of the SDS old guard in Pale. She decided to throw down the gauntlet by firing the chief police officer of Republika Srpska. She invited me to her office in Banja Luka on July 3^rd to ask whether OSCE would be prepared to monitor a repeat election of the RS National Assembly voted into power the previous year. I said I could not answer that question. It would have to be considered by the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. However, I began subsequently to develop support for her courageous move. I repeatedly advocated in the Permanent Council that OSCE should take the risks involved for a possibly significant reduction in the strength of the nationalistic SDS group in Pale.

Gradually, members of the Contact Group came to support this approach. By September it was generally agreed that Assembly elections should be held. In the circumstances of the time, I consulted repeatedly with Milosevic on the issue – both to get the electoral process on track and to continue eliciting support for him to avoid violence.

When the new National Assembly elections took place, Plavsic achieved an astounding but narrow victory. The SDS, which had totally controlled the 83-seat body in 1996, although dropping to only 45 seats in the elections that September, had fallen to only 24 seats. Even with the Radicals, the Pale nationalists could not form a government. Plavsic put together a heterogeneous grouping in a new governing group committed to acceptance of the compromises at Dayton. She subsequently engineered a transfer of governmental offices from Pale to Banja Luka. To this day I believe these developments, resulting from electoral process, represent the most significant advances in the Bosnian peace process. And they drive home the importance of will in overcoming nationalistic opposition.

Not only Pale, but also West Mostar stood as bastions of such opposition. The Bosnian Croat HDZ often seemed even more stubborn than the SDS. But talks with former Croatian President Tudjman sometimes proved effective.

In the 1997 run-up to elections, the HDZ announced it would boycott. A principal reason was perceived unfairness in the impact of OSCE rules and regulations on the unique situation in Mostar, where EU Administrator Hans Koschnik had decreed establishment of a Central District with three municipalities in Bosniak East Mostar, and three in Croat West Mostar. The Croats had concentrated only in West Mostar, while Bosniaks were inhabiting both the Central District and the eastern municipalities. Votes were to come from all three areas. OSCE rules would have inevitably resulted in a Bosniak victory over the Croat majority in this remarkable city.

We worked out a balanced package, offering to adjust OSCE rules to meet Croat concerns, while requiring the Croats to a priori support for adoption of legislation in the Cantonal Assembly to advance the concept of joint administration, to accept UNHCR guidelines for return of refugees, and to stop efforts to unite the three municipalities of West Mostar into a single Bosnian Croat capital of "Herzeg-Bosna".

In last minute negotiations with Tudjman at Zagreb, we achieved acceptance of this package. Tudjman overrode the HDZ’s boycott mainly, I believe, because the United States and European Union had indicated Croatia itself would be denied substantial economic and political benefits if the HDZ boycott were not overcome. Again, a will to confront was productive.

Resources, Forces of Order, and Media

In the course of my experiences in Bosnia and Herzegovina it became increasingly clear to me that the nationalistic leadership on all sides utilized three major assets to retain power: resources, forces of order, and the media. Milosevic’s rule is a classic example of this syndrome. In Bosnia, we took many steps to counter such assets.

Resources, probably too many, have been poured into the country for nearly five years since the peace process began – beyond substantial international commitments to UNPROFOR and UN-EU efforts during the hostilities. Anyone who witnessed the devastation of Bosnia at the end of the war, as I did, and who returns to this country today must conclude that major progress has been achieved in reconstruction despite a wide range of difficulties, including still too-widespread corruption.

Much has been spent on elections and the strengthening of political institutions. But as a result growing pluralism has taken hold. One might say the electoral process has, in fact, been an essential early stage in the process of democratization. At this point Bosnia has achieved, in my view, a very large measure of freedom of association, freedom of expression and freedom of movement. One cannot say, however, that a truly neutral political environment is yet in place in what I think must be seen as an evolutionary process.

With respect to forces of order, the approach of the international community in Bosnia has been notably successful in nearly all respects. IFOR, under U.S. command, entered Bosnia with overwhelming strength. Heavily armed ground forces were backed up by massive air and sea assets. Whenever IFOR or subsequently SFOR have acted determinedly against nationalistic resistance they have prevailed, and without undue reactions. Witness the French SFOR action in arresting Karadzic’s principal associate Momcilo Krajisnik a few months ago. It provoked hardly a ripple. In Kosovo, KFOR might learn from such experiences.

At first, we also faced formidable problems with local police supporting nationalistic political forces – for example in West Mostar. Major efforts were necessary, with an accent on training, to reshape the police into a force in support of the Dayton compromise. The International Police Task Force took the lead in this effort.

As for the media, our OSCE Mission in Bosnia has undertaken efforts from the outset to level the playing field in the political arena. OBN television originated in an OSCE suggestion by the Mission’s first Senior Advisor for Public Affairs, Elizabeth Pryor, that an independent TV service should be made available for the elections in 1996. Soros joined the United States, European Union and others in funding the project. Regrettably, it did not come on line until a fortnight before the September balloting that year, but it has subsequently played a major role in influencing what has become a truly open media situation across the country. SFOR’s interventions to dismantle radical Serb TV capabilities in 1997 also proved notably effective.

The Swiss OSCE Chairmanship conceived, funded, and deployed the mobile Free Elections Radio Network (FERN) that was up and running by July 1996. That service proved effective in bringing the campaign into remote population centers across the country.

Comparable initiatives could be helpful in the Kosovo peace process.

International Teamwork

I recall sitting next to Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, at the London Peace Implementation Council in December 1995, when she emphasized that the key to success in Bosnia would be teamwork within the international community.

In Bosnia’s pioneering endeavor, it took us awhile to pull all the strands of civil and military activity together. But as far as the OSCE Mission was concerned, we established a strong, strategic relationship with IFOR and the NATO command from an early phase of the peace process.

I thought it was essential for us to protect OSCE personnel deployed throughout the country from undertaking sensitive initiatives, for example, to intervene in inter-ethnic cases of human rights violations. I worried especially about our personnel engaged in these activities in remote locations. Also, I knew OSCE and IFOR must be in lockstep when the time would come for elections. Former SACEUR, General Joulwan, has characterized the OSCE-NATO relationship in Bosnia as a model of civil-military coordination.

As we headed into the September 1996 elections, Carl Bildt established a Principals’ Group, to include the leaders of the foremost international civil and military operations under way in Bosnia. Daily meetings of the group in times of special importance during my tenure in Sarajevo proved invaluable in fashioning synergies of maximum effectiveness. I strongly recommend utilization of that kind of coordination body.

While as OSCE Head of Mission I tried to remain on the ground in Bosnia as much as possible to guide Mission activities, it was necessary to participate in a great range of coordinating sessions externally. These included meetings of the Contact Group, Peace Implementation Council, OSCE Senior and Permanent Council as well as Ministerial Troika, the Council of Europe, European Union, and North Atlantic Council. The cumulative impact of these activities helped keep the team together and drive the peace process steadily forward. I am sure this kind of coordinating activity will be useful too in Kosovo.

The OSCE-NATO Relationship

To conclude, I would like to draw special attention to the potential of OSCE-NATO working relationships.

I think of the Harmel concept of 1967, authored by former Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel on the eve of the era of détente. It held that NATO should maintain adequate forces in a strategy of flexible response to deter any level of threat and, on the basis of resultant stability, its member states should undertake initiatives to reduce tension, strengthen peace and advance democratic values. I think we need an updated Europe-wide version of this concept.

On the military side, we have generally been getting it right with IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia with NATO troops at their nexus under U.S. command and active participation by Russian and Central and Eastern European forces. This approach has been credible and effective.

On the civil side too, a way should be found to maximize the influence of those most engaged in the destiny of Europe – viz. the European Union member states, all other European countries including Russia, and the United States and Canada. I consider this approach more logical and effective in Europe than a United Nations regime that includes representatives from all over the world and very time-consuming scrutiny by UN legal staff in New York of efforts – for example to set up a Central Elections Commission – to get a peace process under way.

My recommendation is that OSCE take the lead, as a UN Regional Arrangement with the blessing of the UN Security Council, in guiding international civil dimensions of European peace processes.

It seems to me that in Bosnia OSCE demonstrated in 1996 and 1997 its potential for fulfilling this role. During that period it more than met the electoral tasks requested of it – that is elections for a Joint Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, House of Representatives of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Presidency of Republika Srpska, National Assembly of Republika Srpska, and Cantonal and Municipal governing bodies. Remember, we also had a second RS National Assembly election that shifted the RS locus of power from Pale to Banja Luka.

The Mission also implemented a broad range of Confidence and Security-Building Measures and exceeded targets for dismantling weapons – 6,580 of them by November 1997 – under the Sub-Regional Arms Control Agreement signed at Florence. And it established the strongest human rights monitoring and reporting program in the country.

Future European post-conflict peace-building endeavors of the international community, in my view, should utilize an IFOR-like approach on the military side and OSCE on the civil. I think this would be the most substantively effective – and cost effective – way of carrying forward the tried and true wisdom of the Harmel concept into the 21^st Century.

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