THE TIMES: Why are Russia and Turkey so interested in Bosnia?

The Turkish government has poured money into mosque refurbishments and schools in this part of the country, the Muslim-majority federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Among Bosnia’s Muslims, Mr Erdogan is becoming what President Putin is to the citizens of Republika Srpska: a father figure.

In under three weeks, and amid this creeping outside influence, Bosnians will elect their parliaments and presidents under the most complex system in the world. In an area smaller than Scotland, they will be voting in three presidencies, and parliaments for two autonomous entities and ten cantons, balancing the fragile scales of power between Bosniak Muslims, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs.

The Bosnian constitution was an annex in the 1995 Dayton Peace accords that ended the country’s internecine civil conflict. After 23 years it has not changed — and neither has Bosnian politics. Among all of Bosnia’s three main ethnic groups, populists are leading the election charge.

Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosnian Muslim leader, is the son of the first postwar president and a close friend of Mr Erdogan. He has come to the end of his mandate but his party, which has modelled itself on the Turkish president’s AK Party, dominates politics and state in the Sarajevo-centred federation.

Dragan Covic, the Bosnian Croat president, has been accused of stirring ethnic hatred with his support for war criminals sentenced in The Hague. In November last year he claimed that Slobodan Praljik, a former Croat general who killed himself by drinking poison in the courtroom as he was convicted, had “made a sacrifice to prove he is innocent”.

Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, has been in power for 12 years and will stand for election again. He and his prime minister, Zeljka Cvijanovic, will travel to Moscow to meet Mr Putin in the week before the elections. Ms Cvijanovic met Steve Bannon, President Trump’s sacked chief adviser, former Breitbart editor and populist architect — in Washington in July.

The meeting was, Ms Cvijanovic told The Times, “very interesting, I can tell you. He’s an interesting guy”.

She denied that Mr Bannon had asked her to join his fledgling European project, a right-wing populist caucus in the European parliament called The Movement (Mr Bannon has already courted Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban). She said they had been introduced by a mutual friend, and insisted that her party was still determined to help steer Bosnia into the EU.

“Why would I call myself a populist? I’m just a rational politician,” Ms Cvijanovic added. “People say I’m very pro-Putin. Well, I’m very pro-Trump as well.”

The US and Europe, which should be guiding Bosnia towards Nato and the EU, have taken their eye off the Balkans in recent years as they have become distracted by other crises, diplomats and analysts say. And that leaves it an easy place for other powers to step in.

“We are not openly talking about the impact of EU failures. EU enlargement is not on hold, but it is going slower despite the rhetorical claims to the contrary,” said Roland Gjoni, a researcher on ethnic conflicts at University College Dublin. “But since the EU does not want to talk about it they say that Russia and Turkey are coming. They are coming because the EU is leaving the field open.”

Driving from Banja Luka to Sarajevo, four hours down deserted motorways and silent mountain towns, reveals Bosnia’s most pressing problem. Five per cent of the population has emigrated since the last elections in 2014, overwhelmingly the young, who have headed to western Europe in search of work.

While the leaders retreat to sectarian rhetoric every time an election comes round, the economy is wilting and public services crumbling under corruption and mismanagement. “They raise or burn flags before each election, and people forget all the other issues,” said Borisa Falatar, 43, the presidential candidate for Nasa Stranka (Our Party), the only multi-ethnic and liberal bloc running in the elections.

“For many people these elections are a plebiscite on whether to stay in Bosnia or leave for Europe. There is a lot of rage and anger but it is difficult to channel. We are trying the John Lennon approach.”

On paper there could be few people better qualified to take on the Bosnian challenge. Mr Falatar, a polished former international bureaucrat, is the child of a mixed Muslim-Christian marriage who had lost both his parents by the end of Sarajevo’s war.

While living as a refugee in Croatia as a teenager he began working with the UN as a translator and radio operator. Later he won scholarships to study at Harvard and the London School of Economics before returning to the humanitarian field with the Red Cross and the UN as a high-level co-ordinator working on some of the world’s most complex crises.

But outside Nasa Stranka’s support base, which is concentrated in cosmopolitan Sarajevo, Bosnians are easily lured by the populists’ campaigns of fear and loathing. Only 30 per cent of the population says they agree with mixed marriages. Just 4 per cent of Bosnian marriages are now mixed, compared with 13 per cent before the war.

While his opponents court the support of foreign leaders, Mr Falatar is relying on donations averaging $150 a time, a small army of young street volunteers and crowd-funding to power his campaign. He is running for the Croat third of the tripartite presidency, and knows his chances are small.

“I feel a responsibility to the thousands of Bosnians who still believe in the idea of a multi-ethnic country,” Mr Falatar said. “And it is the EU’s interests not to have Bosnia turning into a black hole.”

How Bosnia’s constitution works
Bosnia is governed at two levels – at the central executive in Sarajevo, and in two autonomous entities, the Muslim-Croat-majority Bosnia-Herzegovina in the south and the Serbian-majority Republika Srpska in the north. The entities control taxation, spending and general legislation through their own parliaments.

Within Bosnia-Herzegovina there are also ten cantons, each with their own parliament, which govern local issues such as education and healthcare.

At the federal level three presidents, one from each ethnic group, share equally in the tripartite office. Their primary jurisdiction is foreign policy, and they sign off decisions either by consensus or majority vote. They also pick the cabinet. Back in their heartlands, they are each considered the one true president by their respective voter bases and wield huge power over their autonomous regions.

Some 28 of the 42 seats in the federal parliament are allocated to members from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 14 from Republika Srpska. It has limited powers, mostly enacting legislation according to presidential decisions. But it approves the state budget and can amend the constitution and issue a vote of no-confidence against the cabinet.