Parties in Bosnia fulfilled only 3% of their promises

In the term of 2010-2014, Bosnia and Herzegovina has had no less than eleven parties in power on state and entity levels. All of these parties gave 1941 pre-election promises in their programs for the 2010 general elections. Out of this number, only 48, or 3% of the promises given were fulfilled in the current term. Fulfilled to a larger extent were 33 promises, partially fulfilled 143, fulfilled to a lesser extent were 273 promises, and all the other promises were not fulfilled.

The failure of ruling parties  to live up to their own promises was even worse than in the term of 2006-2010, when the five ruling parties fulfilled only 5% of their promises. These are the final results of “Istinomjer’s”monitoring of the fulfillment of pre-election promises for the term of 2010-2014.

On the state level of government, the seven parties which participated in the executive government in this term gave a total of 693 promises, out of which 13 (2%) were fulfilled.

The highest percent of fulfilled promises was recorded in foreign policy (5%), while the highest number of unfulfilled promises was recorded in the area of state governance (70 promises). Looking at the success rate of parties which participated in the state level government, SNSD had the highest number of fulfilled promises (7), SBB had 4, while HDZ 1990 and SDA had one fulfilled promise each. These results are, however, even less significant when we look into the quality of promises fulfilled, since most of them referred not to accomplishing some new set goals, but to keeping the status quo, such as retaining the currency board, or “entity voting” in the state parliament.

In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, only 20  out of 843 promises were fulfilled, amounting to 2% of total promises. As much as 410 promises (56%) given by parties participating in the FBiH government were not fulfilled at all.  On this entity level, SDA has the largest percent of fulfilled promises (14 promises, or 5%), while NSRzB had only one promise fulfilled (1%). In the unfulfilled promises category SDP is the first party with 165 (62%) promises not met, followed by SDA, with 151 (49%) broken promises. On this level of power, health care is the area with the largest percent of promises fulfilled (6%), and social care comes second with 4%. Areas with the least fulfilled promises are education and foreign policy, with success rate of 0%, followed by rule of law with 1% fulfilled promises.

In Republika Srpska, a total of 16 promises (4%) was fulfilled, while 188 promises (48%) remained unfulfilled.  Parties that constituted the government in RS had the following results: SNSD had 14 fulfilled promises (7%) and SP RS and DNS had one fulfilled promise each (1%). SNSD also had the highest number of unfulfilled promises, with 95 promises, compared to  64 unfulfilled promises of SP RS and 29 of DNS. Here, again, health care is the area with most fulfilled promises (10%), which is still only 3 promises fulfilled. Foreign policy has 7% (1 promise) fulfilled promises and in the area of social care, 5% (two promises) of the promises were fulfilled. Worst ranked area is rule of law, which doesn’t have any fulfilled promises.

Of the 11 parties monitored, only three are participating or have participated in the executive branch at the entity and state level (SDP, SDA, SNSD), and all the promises of these parties were included in the monitoring. Other parties’ promises were only monitored on the level of power they were a part of, so a total of 1572 promises has been monitored and ranked in 2010-2014 term.

Among all the parties whose programs are included in the monitoring, the largest number of promises was made ​​by the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) (432) and the smallest was made by Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) (31).

There were no major differences in results between different parties or different levels of power, as no party – or government – managed to fulfill even 10% of the promises given to the voters in the 2010 General elections. “Istinomjer” will continue to monitor the fulfillment of pre-election promises in the upcoming 2014-2018 term.

Links to the full report (in Bosnian):
Bosna i Hercegovina
Federacija BiH
Republika Srpska