Today, the SDP leadership held a media conference on the current political situation in the context of the alleged OHR proposal to amend the BiH Election Law. On this occasion, the president of the SDP, Nermin Niksic, spoke.
At the very beginning of his speech, Niksic announced that “everything that is praiseworthy – that is what he will praise”, and that everything that is worthy of criticism – he will criticize.
Then, Niksic says that exactly 48 hours ago he had the opportunity to talk with Schmidt, but that he did not want to comment on any speculations that appeared in the media.
“48 hours ago I had the opportunity to speak with Schmidt and then I did not want to comment on the speculations. The man did not even mention what he wrote yesterday in the media. What we said is not worth a statement, and what was published yesterday does not deserve only the press – but a warning alarm,” says Niksic.
According to him, the party headed by Niksic is “the guardian of the multi-ethnicity of all citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina; it is the guardian of democracy in which every citizen will have the right to express himself as he wishes”.
He then presented the explanations provided by the experts from the OHR.
“We had the thesis that it was not a decision at all, but guidelines on the basis of which a decision would be made later. What would be said in our people is ‘not the neck but the neck’. The introduction of a three percent census for the election of delegates to the House of Peoples from certain nations. Here we are not talking about three percent of the members of those peoples in that canton, but about the total number of that people. Also, the quota for the election of the president and deputy president of the Federation, for the number of delegates of a club of peoples, is changed from six to eight in such a way that it is that the famous concession of unblocking the formation of the government,” explains Niksic.
Niksic wonders what that means in practice?
“I want to say what messages from OHR to BiH are the following: OHR says all of you who did not leave your homes from ’92 to ’95 should do so now and that you are wrong. All those, OHR says, who believed in the Annex 7 so you returned it, you made a mistake,” claims Niksic, and continues:
“OHR says that all those people should be punished with this decision, OHR says that people in BPK and Gorazde who did not give in should be punished, even Bosniaks will not be able to choose and not members of other nations. We will not be silent about this, we will fight with all means “We will fight with our friends in the EU Parliament, and on the street if necessary – with the citizens,” the SDP president points out.
Also, he says that the SDP will address the EU parliamentarians, the Bundestag, which, as Niksic says, recently passed “a completely normal resolution”.
He pointed out that he will continue to defend his principles because they think that the wealth of Bosnia and Herzegovina is precisely its multi-ethnicity.
“With this decision, the OHR calls for no preference for multi-ethnic parties. Who will vote for a Croat in Gorazde or a Bosniak in Siroki Brijeg? If this decision passes, Schmidt will be remembered for ethnically dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Niksic at today’s conference for media at the SDP headquarters in Sarajevo.
He underlined once again that he will do everything, and that this is a red line that he will not cross and will not allow anyone in society to be violated.
Finally, he quoted two sentences from the court verdicts in the cases “Sejdic and Finci” and “Zornic”, which says that – literally – no type of different treatment, which is based on ethnic division, can be justified in a democratic society”.
Niksic ended his address by stating that such a model, as Schmidt would impose, does not exist in any European country, and that they are ready to accept any other that is in force in one of the EU countries, Klix.ba writes.
