The break up of Bosnia-Herzegovina cannot come soon enough

If you fret about a democratic deficit in the EU or even Britain, turn your mind for a moment to one European country with a very peculiar form of democracy indeed. In this country, divided into two parts which hardly deign to speak to each other, your right to vote, to be returned, and in certain cases to stand for office, depends on your declared ethnicity. The presidency is split among three people, again chosen by law on ethnic lines. 

The whole affair is presided over by a High Representative, a kind of international proconsul (previous appointees include Paddy Ashdown; the present one is a softly-spoken German former agriculture minister). They possess almost plenary powers to change the law or the constitution by a stroke of the pen. Last year the incumbent calmly changed the electoral rules just after the votes had been cast in a general election. 

Welcome to the political madhouse of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a state where everything depends on whether you identify as Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, or ‘none of the above’.