Bakir Izetbegovic, leader of the SDA, addressed the media yesterday before the start of the commemoration of the 32nd anniversary of the work of “Women of SDA.” He spoke about the current political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), stating, among other things, that the President of Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik “can only be defeated by Dodik himself” and that next year the SDA is returning to the political scene and will resolve the ongoing crisis in our country.
Head of the European Union (EU) Delegation Luigi Soreca clearly stated that the international community will not resolve the political crisis in BiH, that neither Brussels nor EUFOR will interfere in it, and at the session of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the message from the United States (U.S.) representative was also rather mild and expected. Izetbegovic believes that perhaps we expected too much and thus relied on help from the outside.
“And now again we are too pessimistic. I wouldn’t say that European countries or the U.S. will withdraw from the ‘BiH project’ because they need peace in the Balkans. That this will be resolved quickly and fairly, the way we want, unfortunately, I don’t believe. The burden on Milorad Dodik’s regime will slowly grow, which will narrow his space and effectively suffocate all those around him, unfortunately including the entity that has 20 percent more pensioners than the Federation of BiH (FBiH), 20 percent lower income, is 100 percent more indebted per capita than people in FBiH, and that burden will grow. It will all end with the rule of law, but not as quickly and easily as we think,” said Izetbegovic.
“No NATO or EU path, everything is at a standstill”
He emphasized that the Constitution of BiH must be respected, as well as the laws and institutions of the state.
“All these questions should first be answered by those who brought us to this point. Those who promised some kind of speed and brought us to blockades and stagnation. They said Milorad Dodik had changed and now we see how he has changed, they have indebted us enormously, the FBiH is almost catching up with RS, public companies that were doing business positively have almost been turned into loss-makers, and they should be the ones answering such questions,” Izetbegovic stated.
He also said that BiH’s European path is at a standstill.
“We are at a standstill when it comes to the EU, and the NATO path is not even mentioned anymore, but at least something could have been done in the economy. We have a drop in industrial production, exports, borrowing… Elektroprivreda BiH (EPBiH) creates 700.000 BAM of debt daily. Unbelievable what kind of under-capacity, incompetence, and mocking of meritocracy, which they swore by. You can’t appoint someone as director of EPBiH who has never dealt with it, because then we have scenes like those when for 40 days in Jablanica a railway track hangs in the air, and in the end, a private company from Turkey, instead of the state, completes the job. It could have always been done better. And we were in power too, but we never had crises like these. Everything was moving forward slowly and for the better,” claims Izetbegovic.
He believes that Milorad Dodik is the generator of the crisis in BiH.
“What comes from Belgrade and the regime from Banja Luka is, in fact, they are the generators, but a Turkish proverb says that ‘the wolves aren’t to blame when the flock is lost, but the bad shepherds,’ meaning, those who should protect us. Because we were also with Dodik and the NATO path was moving forward, and we were, more or less, progressing on the EU path, and economic parameters were growing faster than ever. Eight years of Fadil Novalic’s rule in the FBiH, which ended the way it did – are they happy now? Are they happy with what they did with the Clinical Center University of Sarajevo (KCUS), removing quality people out of revenge, and then we get what we have now,” said the SDA leader.
Izetbegovic announced SDA’s return to the political scene
In response to a journalist’s remark that the Coalition of the Three has practically hit a wall, Izetbegovic replied:
“Of course, they brought themselves to this state. And if anyone defeats Milorad Dodik, it will be Milorad Dodik. Milorad will defeat Dodik with his policy of going headfirst through a wall. It won’t be the Coalition of the Three.”
He is also skeptical regarding the new Platform for Cooperation recently signed by the Coalition of the Three with the RS opposition.
“Politics is the art of the possible and we strongly support it, but is it possible to implement? Not even the high representative can do anything about it. Until the politicians in BiH come to their senses, as well as the people who elect them, it’s hard for us to get on the right track. It can only be bad or somewhat less bad. In our time, it was somewhat less bad, we were at least moving. This year and a half will also pass, and SDA will soon mark 35 years of existence. There is nothing we haven’t faced, from aggression to very complex issues, and we always found a solution. God willing, next year we will return and we will find a solution for this too,” concluded Izetbegovic, N1 writes.
