Covic: No special conditions for government formation

N1

There are no special conditions for the government formation, outgoing Croat Presidency member Dragan Covic told the local media.

“Some levels of the government can easily be formed, such as the Council of Ministers, the Presidency, as well as cantonal governments, but any attempt to form the House of Peoples in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity or the HoP at the State level is conditioned by the change of Bosnia’s Election Law,” Covic said following the October general election in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “But, as far as the FBiH is concerned, may God have mercy on us.”

Covic, who is the leader of the biggest Croat party in the country, the nationalist Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) added that changes to Bosnia’s Election Law could be made only if there is political will for this. If not, excuses will be made why this is impossible, he added.

“The question is, do we have the capacity for it? If yes, that we can solve it in a matter of minutes. However, dealing with how we can do this without getting into the contents of these amendments is pointless,” Covic concluded. “That’s what we’ve been doing for the past two years.”

Two years ago the Constitutional Court ruled that some provisions of the Election Law were inconsistent with the state Constitution. Since then the authorities have failed to act in the legally allowed timeframe resulting in a further court ruling to delete two sections of the Election Law that treat the matter of representation in the FBiH House of Peoples.

The ongoing political talks on the electoral reform in Bosnia have been in a deadlock for some time, despite the mediation of international representatives in the country, who took the advisory role in these negotiations.