High Representative and EU Special Representative Valentin Inzko today awarded 25-year old Miodrag Jovicic, an economist from northern Bosnia, with the first prize of 1,000 KM for his winning entry to the OHR speech-writing competition launched this summer.
BiH citizens aged between 18 and 35 were invited to write a short speech that would help improve the political atmosphere ahead of the 3 October general election.
Competitors were asked to imagine themselves in the position of Chair of the BiH Council of Ministers.
Mr Jovicic’s winning speech argues that while the most prosperous countries in the world are multicultural, Bosnia and Herzegovina has not yet been able to turn its diversity into an asset. He stresses that this is possible if citizens acknowledge what they have in common rather than focusing on what divides them.
“We are not enemies with one another,” Mr Jovicic writes. “Our real enemies are poverty, hunger, illness and misery,” and these problems, he concludes, can be tackled by working together.
Presenting the first prize to Mr Jovicic the HR/EUSR said he was heartened by the strong and creative response the OHR speech competition generated.
“In most contributions the speechwriters called on politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina to focus on solving citizens’ real problems – unemployment, crime, corruption, inadequate welfare services, and underfunded schools,” the HR/EUSR said.
“If people really want an end to the intransigence and gridlock and a new beginning for themselves and their children, then they must vote,” he said. “A high turn-out this Sunday increases the chance that the speechwriters’ concerns will be dealt with seriously in the years to come.”
The full text of Mr Jovicic’s winning speech can be accessed on https://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/presssp/default.asp?content_id=45347. This text, and those of runners-up Jasmina Ahmetovic, Renata Radic Dragic and Draga Gajic, will be available at www.reci.ba