The Chairman of the tripartite BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, said that Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity is prepared to reach an agreement to amend the election law and the BiH Constitution and that he would not interfere in the problems related to the election of Presidency members from the other semi-autonomous entity, the Federation (FBiH).
Amendments to Bosnia’s Election Law are necessary for the country to implement rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, which represents one of the priorities the European Commission defined for the country to tackle on its path towards EU candidate status.
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Dodik, who is the leader of the ruling party in the Serb-majority RS entity, commented on the visits of foreign officials to Bosnia in light of efforts to amend the country’s election law, as well as on the appointment of the new High Representative who is tasked with overseeing the civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, sarguing that “it is obvious that international interventionism is returning, which aims to meet the sick expectations of one side.”
“We insist that we want an agreement because that is the only possible way to achieve something in BiH. And not the constant expectation that international mediators will come as they did yesterday and today in the hope that they will do something, come up with a solution and support one side,” he said.
One of the rulings against BiH refers to the case ‘Sejdic-Finci’. In 2009, the European Court ruled that the principle of electing top officials in Bosnia is discriminatory because only members of the three ‘constituent’ peoples – Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs – can serve certain posts in the country, such as the posts in the Presidency.
The RS defined its position 12 years ago when the ‘Sejdic-Finci’ problem emerged and said it was prepared to amend the Constitution so it says that “one” of the Presidency members is elected from the RS, as opposed to the “Serb” Presidency member. That means a direct election of a member of the Presidency from RS, he said.
“We said that we would wait for the Bosniaks and Croats and their political representatives to agree,” he said.
Dodik argued that representatives from the EU and US also agree that domestic political representatives should resolve the issue regarding electoral reform.
He argued that “the Croats are correct” in their efforts to ensure that the ethnic group elects its own political representatives.
According to most Bosnian Craots politicians, primarily those from the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), the current Croat member of the Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, was elected thanks to Bosniak votes and is thus not a legitimate representative of Croats.
Dodik, who is a political ally of HDZ BiH leader, Dragan Covic, said that “it was proven that Komsic only works in the interest of Bosniaks.”
He said that “RS is not ready to discuss the election of a member of the Presidency from RS.”
As for the appointment of the new High Representative in Bosnia, Dodik said that “the US and EU are not being fair when they are asking us to accept and respect his illegal appointment.”
“It is obvious that international interventionism is returning and that it obviously aims to achieve the sick expectations of only one side,” he said.
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