Chairman of the BiH Presidency, Denis Bećirović, provoked sharp reactions from Croatian officials from that country on Wednesday after he called the demands that Croats elect their own member of the state leadership “ethnic apartheid”, Hina writes.
Today in Strasbourg, Bećirović participated in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where, answering the question of the reporter Zsolt Németh about the right of Croats to elect their own member of the BiH Presidency, he rejected such a model. He pointed out that the current Croatian member of the Presidency, Željko Komšić, was “elected in a completely legal way by the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. He called the electoral model that would guarantee Croats the choice of their own representative “new ethnic dividing lines” and “ethnic apartheid”.
On four occasions, Komšić was elected to the State Presidency, predominantly by the votes of Bosniaks, and the Croats do not recognize him as a member of the BiH Presidency.
BiH Justice Minister Davor Bunoza assessed Bećirović’s claims as unfounded, emphasizing that denying a constituent people the right to elect their legitimate representative constitutes discrimination and even “ethnic apartheid.”
BiH Deputy Foreign Minister Josip Brkić warned that Bećirović’s statements undermine the constitutional order established by the Dayton Agreement, deepen political divisions and fuel instability.
Similar criticism was made by Croatian MEP Željana Zovko. She assessed that qualifying legitimate political representation as “ethnic apartheid” was a dangerous interpretation of the constitutional order of BiH. She emphasized that the principle of the constituent peoples is the foundation of the BiH Constitution and that it gives rise to the right of every people to independently elect their political representatives, which has been confirmed in relevant decisions of domestic and international courts.
