A member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom (UK), Baroness Arminka Helic, presented her position on possible changes to the Election Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
In an author’s text for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Helic stated that the imposition of electoral law in BiH, as was shown in the documents published by the media in BiH in recent weeks, would bring an effective monopoly on all Bosnian Croat positions in parliaments and governments at all levels.
Helic emphasized that the argument of the Croatian government and Dragan Covic that Croats are not properly represented in BiH is false.
”Croats in BiH accounted for 15.4 percent of the population in the last census. In the 2018 national elections, the HDZ, i.e. one (not the only) Croatian party, won 9.05 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, at almost all levels of government, the HDZ controls significantly more political representatives than this share of votes would suggest. HDZ appoints 30 percent of BiH ministers and has 12 percent of representatives in the House of Representatives and 27 percent of delegates in the House of Peoples of Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (PABiH). In addition, there are other Croatian representatives, but since they are political competitors of Covic, he does not recognize them,” she added.
As she stated, “the falsity of Covic’s claim that he is concerned about Croatian representation becomes obvious when you realize that HDZ never cares for Croats in the BiH entity Republika Srpska (RS), the only group of Croats in BiH that does not have the opportunity to vote for a member of the Presidency from among the Croatian people.”
”They do not have the key to choice and power, so it seems that Covic has no interest in them. If the supposed friends of BiH, whether in Croatia, the European Union (EU), the UK, or the United States (U.S.), really cared about the country, they would support a process based on responsibility, democracy, tolerance, and human rights, and not new laws that would make it even more difficult,” she further stated.
Helic stressed that Covic’s maneuvering is perhaps to be expected from a man who has been dealing with personal ambitions for years. The more difficult question, she states, is why his schemes managed to get the support of the U.S. and the West, including, unfortunately, the UK.
”Part of the answer lies in Zagreb’s consistent lobbying, especially in Washington, at every opportunity in recent years. The Croatian government has proven adept at leveraging its position within the EU to benefit its Bosnian Croat allies. It has successfully convinced some in the EU and the U.S. to focus electoral reform efforts in BiH on constituent nations rather than principles of equality. Earlier this year, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Croatian President Zoran Milanovic supported calls to postpone the October elections until there is an electoral system favorable to the HDZ. Croatia also inserted a reference to the three constituent nations in the EU’s latest strategic compass, despite the protests of some other European countries, confirming the superiority of these groups over individuals and crowding out other identities. Allegedly, and perhaps most shockingly of all, the Croatian president even threatened to veto the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO if electoral reforms favorable to HDZ are not implemented in BiH,” Helic emphasized.
In the end, Helic points out, “this is a betrayal of the promise of Croatian officials ten years ago to be a good neighbor, and a betrayal of the ideas and values at the heart of the EU.”
”That this has been allowed to happen reflects badly on the wider West, and gives Russian President Vladimir Putin great pleasure. Instead of moving BiH away from discrimination and bringing it closer to a modern democratic settlement in which all citizens have equal rights and equal political representation, they would strengthen ethnic division and subordinate individual rights to group identity – she believes,” Helic concluded, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
