Plenkovic tells Bosnian Croats in Mostar that proposed changes to election laws – denounced by Bosniaks – will ‘take into account all the constituent peoples of Bosnia.’
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic arrives for talks with Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala in Prague, Czech Republic, 07 July 2022. EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic supports the Office of the High Representative OHR led by Christian Schmidt in his intentions to impose changes to the country’s election law, he said after a meeting with the leader of Bosnia’s Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, Dragan Čović, on Monday.
“We believe that, according to what we know, the direction he [Schmidt] intends to take is good and beneficial for Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Plenkovic said in Mostar, southwest Bosnia.
It was “a good and useful and fairly balanced proposal that takes into account all constituent peoples and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, he added.
Plenkovic said that a stable, democratic and inclusive Bosnia was in the interest of Croatia, which “is a constant of our policy, we work on it and we stand for it”.
Croats, the smallest of Bosnia’s three constituent nations, have been loud in complaining of under-representation in Bosnian politics.
The proposed changes mean that if the number of any of Bosnia’s constituent nations in any Federation entity canton are less than 3 per cent, they will no longer have representatives in the House of Peoples of the Federation parliament.
Dragan Čović, head of the HDZ in Bosnia, has strongly advocated for the changes.
He says Schmidt’s proposal is an opportunity to correct a mistake made towards the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But the intentions of the OHR, the international office overseeing Bosnia, to use its executive so-called “Bonn-powers” and impose the changes to the country’s election law and Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have caused political turmoil.
Bosniak parties have condemned the plans, claiming that they are discriminatory and are designed only to help the main Bosnian Croat party, the HDZ, keep power.
The Social Democratic Party has called on people to gather in front of the building of the OHR in order to “defend democratic values” and protest the possible changes by Schmidt.
Since then, eight other political parties have invited their supporters to join peaceful protests on Monday, including the main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA.
The draft decision, which has already been sent to foreign embassies, lists changes to the election law in relation to the functioning of the houses of parliament, the election of the leadership of the Federation entity, the election of judges to the Federation entity’s Constitutional Court as well as numerous changes to ensure the integrity of the election process.
The current Election Law says that delegates to the House of Peoples must be voted on a 1-1-1 basis, with at least one Bosniak, one Croat and one Serb representative from each canton.
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