2010 Annual Report

2010 Grantee Spotlight

Zasto Ne (Why Not)

Since the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s democratic and economic transition has been paralyzed by ethnic division, political deadlock and corruption. With public discontent on the rise, the October 2010 presidential and parliamentary elections offered an crucial opportunity to alter the country’s political landscape.

NED grantee Zasto ne (Why Not) seized this opportunity and combined new technologies with non-partisan Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) campaigns that encouraged voter turnout and provided clear information about candidates. Three websites developed by the organization — the Istinomjer (Truth-O-Meter), the Glaso-metar (Vote-meter), and Razglasaj (Spread the Word) — were, together, a powerful force for educating and mobilizing voters in innovative, non-partisan ways that transcended ethnic division.

The Istinomjer (www.istinomjer.ba) allowed voters to go online and do political fact-checking. Why Not worked with a NED grantee in Serbia to develop a Bosnian version of the groundbreaking Istinomjer (www.istinomer.rs). The interactive site featured policy statements from party and public officials, comparisons with their earlier statements and candidate platforms, and actual legislation and implemented policies. In the lead-up to the elections, a team of journalists and researchers analyzed about 1,000 documents, contacted over 200 institutions, and created a database of more than 1,000 statements from different public officials, which were graded according to their truthfulness. The site’s launch in August 2010 was a top news story for days. A review of those politicians governing since 2006 found that only five percent of their promises were actually fulfilled, prompting the public to dub it “The Five Percent Coalition” and forcing its candidates to justify their records before Election Day.

The Glasometar (www.glasometar.ba) and Razglasaj (www.razglasaj.ba) sites played an equally important role. The former offered an easy-to-use, non-partisan questionnaire which tested issue-oriented voter preferences; 18,500 people from around the country took the Glasometar test. Razglasaj, a one-stop shop portal for all election-related information, attracted an average of 500 unique hits a day.

But Why Not did not rely on virtual activism alone. As the leading coordinator of the Dosta! (Enough!) Movement (www.dosta.ba), one of the most popular and active civil society networks in the Balkans, Why Not oversaw the GOTV initiatives of over a dozen organizations, organized several hundred civic actions and public events, produced and distributed thousands of publications and materials, and provided capacity-building training and assistance to local partner organizations. Why Not partnered with the highly popular band Dubioza Kolektiv (Dubious Collective) to produce a GOTV campaign theme song and video, and to hold live concerts in cities and towns across the country, including Donji Vakuf, Tuzla and Zenica.

These innovative programs were part of an unprecedented Endowment effort focused on the general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through 24 grants, NED supported close to 50 organizations and informal groups engaged in non-partisan voter education and mobilization. These efforts created an atmosphere in which politicians, elected representatives and appointed officials were held more accountable to the public, spread the idea that government is not an unquestionable authority but a public service entrusted through elections — and may have provided a crucial turning point towards a brighter future for Bosnia and Herzegovina.