Irma Baralija (born 1984) is a Bosnian politician, teacher, and democracy activist serving as member of the Mostar City Council since February 2021.
Baralija rose to prominence in 2018, when she took the Bosnian government to court for violating her human rights after local elections were not held in her hometown Mostar for over a decade following a political stalemate between rival nationalist parties.
Concerns arose that the constituencies were not proportionate to the number of people living within them, leading to disproportionate representation in the City Council, and ultimately prompting the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to rule the Mostar's electoral system as "unconstitutional".
Despite this, the council, which was largely divided on ethnic grounds, did not address the issue by the end of its mandate in 2012, and as a result local elections were not held in the city in 2012 or 2016.
[12] In 2021, Baralija campaigned for formal recognition with Mostar of Berta Bergman and Marija Kon, two sisters who were the first in Bosnia to graduate high school and to obtain a doctorate, respectively.
[16] In March 2021, the United States embassy in Sarajevo gave Baralija an award in honour of Women's History Month, in recognition of her efforts to return democracy to Mostar.