A field guide to one of the most complex electoral systems in the world—Lebanon being the only real contender   October 4, 2026. General election day in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Depending on where they live, voters are choosing between three and seven different layers of government at the same time: the Presidency of BiH, the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the Parliament of the Federation of BiH, or the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, cantonal assemblies in the Federation, as well as the President and Vice Presidents of Republika Srpska. This is not a democratic system someone carefully designed. This is a system patched together in Dayton in November 1995 to stop a war. Thirty years later, that same system blocks any chance of normal state functionality. Here’s what it looks like from the inside.   ARCHITECTURE: THREE SYSTEMS IN ONE Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two entities: the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska, with the Brčko District grafted on top. Each e...

A STRATEGIST'S FORECAST FOR WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BOSNIA'S OCTOBER 2026 VOTES ARE COUNTED     The votes from Bosnia and Herzegovina's October 4, 2026, elections will be counted in a single night. The government those votes produce will take at least a year to form, and there is a realistic probability it will not be fully formed before the end of 2027. This is not pessimism. It is the documented pattern. After 2018, government formation at the state level took fourteen months. After 2022, it took over a year across multiple levels. The question for October 2026 is not whether the post-election period will be long. The question is whether it will be merely long — or whether it will be long and constitutionally contested in ways that have no established resolution mechanism. The standard post-election analysis in BiH focuses on who won what seat and what the coalition math looks like. That analysis misses the point. In BiH, the post-election period is not a consequence of the vot...

Kada kažete 'obraćamo se svima', u prevodu to znači: ne obraćate se nikome.   Postoje dve rečenice koje mi pokazuju da oni koji sede preko puta mene ne znaju mnogo o kampanji. Zanimljivo je da sam obe čuo od Afrike, preko Balkana i Evrope do Filipina. One su: ‘Mi smo specifični’ i na nju sam tokom svih ovih godina naučio da ne reagujem. Druga je samo malo ređa a ona glasi: ‘Mi se obraćamo svim građanima.’ E kod nje se retko suzdržim i moj odgovor je uvek isti: ’Znači ne obraćate se nikome.’ Postoji romantična predstava kod nekih političara da je biračko telo jedna velika grupa ljudi koji gledaju istu TV, čitaju iste portale, slušaju istu poruku, klimaju glavom u istom trenutku i izlaze na birališta vođeni istim motivom.  Ta predstava je lepa ali u praksi potpuno netačna.  U izbornoj kampanji ne postoji jedna ciljna grupa. Postoji penzioner koga brinu cene lekova, mlada majka koju brine upis u vrtić, i čovek od četrdeset pet godina koji je glasao za vas prošli put ali ove ...

  Whenever someone says, “We’re speaking to everyone,” what they’re really saying is, “We’re speaking to no one.” Two phrases immediately tell me the people sitting across the table don’t know much about campaigning. What’s interesting is that I’ve heard both of them everywhere—from Africa to the Balkans, across Europe, and all the way to the Philippines. The first one is: “We’re unique.” After all these years, I’ve learned not to react to that one. The second is a little less common: “We’re speaking to all citizens.” That one is harder to let slide. My response is always the same: “So you’re speaking to nobody.” Some politicians cling to a romantic vision of the electorate as one giant group of people who watch the same TV channels, read the same news sites, hear the same messages, nod their heads at the same moment, and ultimately vote for the same reasons. It’s a nice idea. It’s also completely wrong. In a political campaign, there is no single target audience. There’s the retir...

Naviknut da radim napolju i ja sam zamenio naziv Centralni izborni štab sa ’ozbiljnijim’ War room. Termin dolazi direktno iz vojne terminologije, jer se tako zovu prostorije u kojima su se donosile odluke od kojih je zavisila sudbina država tokom ratova. Kaže legenda da je u kampanje tu kovanicu uveo Sten Grinberg, Klintonov pollster i to 1992. Kao što legenda kaže da je baš u toj kampanji Džejms Karvil, glavni strateg, napisao na tabli čuvenu rečenicu koja važi i danas: ’It’s all about economy. You stupid.’ No o temi ekonomije nekom drugom prilikom.  Od tada, gotovo svako ko učestvuje na izborima centralni izborni štab naziva war room. Iskustvo mi govori da retko ko razume zašto je baš ovaj termin usvojen. Open space soba. Na zidovima mnogo TV-a i svaki prikazuje različiti kanal. Na svakom radnom stolu laptop na kome se kuca nešto važno. Telefoni zvone. Neko viče brojeve iz najnovijeg istraživanja. Šef izbornog štaba stoji u sredini i sve kontroliše pogledom. Tako war room izgleda...

  How It Really Works: The War Room Working mostly in the field, I ditched "Central Campaign Headquarters" for something that carries more weight — War Room. The term comes straight from military vocabulary. That's what they called the rooms where decisions were made that could determine the fate of nations during wartime. Legend has it that Stan Greenberg, Clinton's pollster, brought that phrase into campaign politics in 1992. The same legend credits James Carville — lead strategist on that campaign — with scrawling a sentence on a whiteboard that still holds today:  "It's the economy, stupid."  But that topic deserves its own piece. Since then, nearly everyone running a campaign has called their central operation a war room. Experience tells me almost nobody understands why the name stuck. Picture an open-plan room. Walls lined with TVs, each tuned to a different channel. Laptops open on every desk, people hammering away at something urgent. Phones rin...

    Mislim da javnost, analitičari, novinari i politički komentatori uglavnom postavljaju pogrešno pitanje kada pričaju o kamikaze kandidatima. Umesto:  „Može li on da pobedi?"   pravo pitanje glasi::  „Šta se njegovom kandidaturom postiže?"   U kampanjama koje pratim već skoro tri decenije, fenomen kamikaza kandidata/stranke/pokreta/grupe građana se stalno ponavlja i gotovo uvek se pogrešno tumači. Oni nisu sinonim za ljude željne pažnje koji nemaju šansu na izborima. Mnogo češće to je izuzetno bitna stavka u pobedničkoj izbornoj strategiji. U nesavršenim izbornim sistemima kakvih na Balkanu, i ne samo na Balkanu, ima u izobilju ovaj model funkcioniše precizno kao najbolji švajcarski sat.  Za priču o kamikaza kandidatima sam se zainteresovao posle gledanja dokumentarnog filma ‘The Big Hack’ koji još uvek može da se odgleda na Netflixu. U njemu se, relativno kratko, spominju izbori na Trinidad Tobagu i pokretu ‘Do So’ koji su još 2010-te obrnuli o...