Almost six months have passed since the end of the General Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and the new federal government is not in sight. Despite the fact that the Trojka and HDZ largely share portfolios, it is not possible to form a new government without the signature of Vice President Refik Lendo, unless the high representative, which is being mentioned more and more often, intervenes in the Federation of BiH (FBiH) Constitution once again.
While the representatives of the extended Trojka on one side and the SDA and DF on the other are fighting for federal resources, a much more important battle is taking place in the background, caused by the current political context in which signals are also coming from the international community about who should form the government.
The current political clinch has once again opened the question in whose hands the mechanisms that determine the appearance of the federal government lie to a decisive extent, in the hands of the civil majority in the House of Representatives or in the hands of the president and two vice-presidents of FBiH.
Despite Schmidt’s decision of October 2nd, which amended the Constitution of the FBiH and the Electoral Law of BiH, the topic is open due to the fact that the SDA, with the help of the DF, obtained 13 delegates during the election of delegates to the House of Peoples of the FBiH and managed to get the position of vice president of the FBiH.
The Constitution of the Federation is completely clear, the mechanisms lie in the hands of all four factors, the majority in the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament as well as in the hands of every member of the leadership of the FBiH, where none of them can be bypassed in the current circumstances. If the coalition of parties, in the specific case HDZ and the Trojka, is not able to control all four factors, then it is not able to form the Government either.
In the current circumstances, there are several options that the international community has. The first is that the Office of the High Representative (OHR) does not intervene and allow the formation of the FBiH Government to those who currently hold the keys to power, SDP, HDZ and SDA.
Second, there is an option for the high representative tointervene permanently and introduce the possibility of overvoting one of the members of the FBiH leadership when making a decision on the appointment of the Government.
This would include a mechanism for the outvoted member of the FBiH leadership to veto the appointment decision, which would be decided by the delegates to the People’s Caucus of the House of Peoples of FBiH from which the outvoted member of the FBiH leadership was originally proposed. In the event that 2/3 of the delegates refuse to support the veto, he would finally be outvoted in the process of forming the government.
With that, Schmidt would reduce the importance he gave to the people’s caucuses in the House of People to a certain extent, compared to what he originally decided on October 2nd, but not to the level it was at before. Instead of the earlier six and the current 11 delegates who are important in the process of forming the Government, 8 would be enough to complete that process.
Finally, the third option is for the high representative to also intervene in the FBiH Constitution, pass a temporary or permanent solution that would further complicate the appointment of the Government (proposal with cantons), shift the powers of the Federation to only part of the cantons, and in practice show that in FBiH the leading ethno-national politics is the only way to power. With such a decision, Schmidt would show to the end that he puts the interests of Zagreb before the interests of BiH in every possible situation, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
