“That will not happen. Things need to be relaxed”. This is how media adviser to the member of the Presidency Denis Becirovic, Adis Deljkovic, comments on the initiative of the chairperson of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Zeljka Cvijanovic.
On February 8th, Cvijanovic requested the abolition of the Public Relations Service in the BiH Presidency.
As the reason, she mentioned a press release sent from Becirovic‘s cabinet, in which the public is informed that the collective head of state has reached a conclusion on sending a medical team of the Armed Forces of BiH (AFBiH) to Turkey to provide assistance after the earthquake.
Cvijanovic was bothered by the fact that, as she stated, the announcement was not coordinated with all three cabinets of the BiH Presidency.
“It’s the same policy that politicians from the entity Republika Srpska (RS), especially Milorad Dodik, have been pursuing for some time,” political analyst Ivana Maric told.
She assesses that Cvijanovic‘s move is in the spirit of the previous political narratives of her party leader Milorad Dodik, which are aimed at national divisions and the weakening of state institutions.
A long history of Dodik’s anti-state politics
For years, the international community has been describing Milorad Dodik, the president of BiH entity RS, as “the biggest threat to the stability of the country” and a dangerous politician whose goal is “to destroy the Bosnian state”.
He is the highest-ranked BiH politician from the ‘American blacklist’, i.e. a person who has been sanctioned. The European Parliament also requested the introduction of sanctions against him from the European Union (EU).
The United Kingdom (UK) also imposed sanctions against Dodik and Cvijanovic. The two come from the Party of Independent Social Democrats, the ruling political party in BiHentity RS. Since mid-2021, that party has led anti-constitutional initiatives in the assembly of this entity.
Milorad Dodik initiated the blockade of the work of BiH institutions after in July 2021, former High Representative Valentin Inzko imposed changes to the Criminal Code of BiH and banned the denial of genocide and war crimes, Radio Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz