The emigration of Croats and Serbs from BiH is quite unfortunate, however this country thankfully remains linked with our nation state. That being said, it is of course good for instance that we (Croats) have around four million people right next to it. As BiH is the antithesis of the Croat and Serb people, as the leftovers of Turks fall into irrelevance and flee their own country, it can be integrated with those it derives its historical value from in the future.

Following the 2022 general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which were held on October 2nd, some analysts on Twitter started spewing the usual myths about Croat voting patterns. They claimed that 90,000 Croats who live in five Bosniak-majority cantons generally vote for “moderate” and “multiethnic parties” without backing up their claims with any data.

These claims are a part of the wider narrative that argues that: 1) Herzegovinian Croats emigrate much more than Bosnian Croats, suggesting that Herzegovinian Croats are a vocal minority that dominates Croat politics in BiH; 2) Croats should have less political power as they are disappearing from BiH; and 3) Herzegovinian Croats are a homogenous group that supports the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ), the main Croat nationalist party in BiH, while Bosnian Croats are moderate. The reason for these outlandish claims is that the last census was done in 2013 and no one has undertaken a detailed demographic analysis, leaving space for speculation.

In 1991, only 33 per cent of all Croats in BiH lived in the three Herzegovinian cantons (West Herzegovina – ZHK, Herzegovina-Neretva – HNK, and Livno – K10). In 2022, 63 per cent of Croats live in these three Croat-majority Herzegovinian cantons. In other words, the proportion of Herzegovinian Croats to Bosnian Croats went from 1:2 to 2:1, largely due to the war and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Since 2013, the proportion of Herzegovinian Croats out of all Croats in BiH rose from 56 to 63 per cent. This proportion will only increase further in the future, as in 2021 69 per cent of all newborn Croats in BiH were born in the three Herzegovinian cantons. Out of all the municipalities in BiH in 2021, only nine Croat-majority municipalities in Herzegovina listed over 100 newborn Croats. In 1991, out of the top ten municipalities in BiH with the most Croats, six were in Bosnia and only four were in Herzegovina. Today, nine are in Herzegovina, and only one is in Bosnia. To say that the geographic shift has been dramatic would be an understatement. However, this does refute the claims that Herzegovinian Croats are a minority and that there are more Bosnian Croats.

Migration trends of Croats in BiH

Contrary to popular perceptions, Bosniaks emigrate from BiH more than Croats. For example, between 2012 (the last year before Croatia entered the EU) and 2021, the number of newborn Croats (a good proxy for measuring emigration, especially among the youth) decreased by 22 per cent, while the number of newborn Bosniaks decreased by 23 per cent. At the same time, the number of newborn Serbs in BiH decreased by just five per cent.

A common myth that has been propagated in recent years is that Croats in Herzegovina vote overwhelmingly for HDZ, whereas Croats in Bosnia are more “progressive and moderate”. Leaving aside the wealth of research that shows that no party in BiH is truly multiethnic and that all major political parties garner at least 90 per cent of their support from just one of the three constituent nations, the analysis of the 2022 general elections results does show a significant difference in regional voting patterns amongst Croats. Overall, it is the Bosnian Croats that support HDZ much more than Herzegovinian Croats.

In the elections for ten cantonal assemblies, HDZ’s list won 115,000 votes, while other Croat-majority parties (such as HDZ 1990, HRS, HNP, etc.) won 55,000 votes. Some 4,000 Croats – mostly in Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Zenica – voted for Bosniak-majority (nominally multiethnic) parties.

In other words, HDZ won 66 per cent of all Croat votes for cantonal assemblies.

Looking at the regional dynamics, HDZ won 63,000 out of 109,000 Croat votes in the three Herzegovinian cantons, or 58 per cent of votes.

At the same time, HDZ won 51,000 votes out of 64,000 votes cast by Croats in seven Bosnian cantons, or 80 per cent of votes.

In other words, supposedly “moderate” Croats in Bosnia proper support HDZ 22 percentage points higher on average than “nationalist” Croats in Herzegovina.

Although roughly 63 per cent of Croat voters in the FBiH live in Herzegovina (Herzegovinian Croats are 65 per cent of FBiH’s Croat population but are on average much younger than Bosnian Croats), whereas 37 per cent of them live in Bosnia, HDZ obtained 45 per cent of its votes in Bosnia and only 55 per cent in Herzegovina. In fact, in Livno canton (K10), HDZ received by far the lowest proportion of the Croat vote, only 26 per cent, making it the most politically pluralistic canton for Croats in BiH.

I always strongly suspected that Bosnian Croats are the worst.