We have reportedly entered the final phase of negotiations on election law reform and probably another in a series of attempts to convince SDA President Bakir Izetbegovic to agree to an agreement that essentially rejects all or almost all Sarajevo-based parties.
United States (U.S.) Electoral Reform Representative Matthew Palmer and European External Action Service Director Angelina Eichhorst have skillfully used U.S. sanctions on Milorad Dodik to revive electoral reform talks. In addition, an invitation from the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic who addressed Dodik and advised him to return to the institutions of BiH also was in their favor.
The U.S. sanctions created the illusion that Dodik’s intentions to illegally dispute the state’s competencies in the Republika Srpska (RS) were finally stopped, but they were not. His announcement of the return to the institutions does not necessarily mean their functionality, but for foreigners it means the possibility to implement an agreement on the Election Law on the other side because they know that Dodik will support everything that is in the interest of HDZ.
Despite the fact that the crisis was, to a greater or lesser extent, jointly generated by Dodik and to some extent Covic, who never condemned Dodik’s policy, the mediators are not too interested, because everything is subordinated to electoral reform, even if it means reducing the danger posed by politics of the current RS authorities.
Croatia’s opposition to sanctions against Milorad Dodik is quite logical because, without the support of the SNSD, it is not possible to carry out electoral reform in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly.
Meetings with the presidents of all opposition parties, which were held on Thursday, Palmer and Einchhorst used to create an atmosphere in the public that everyone is equally involved in shaping the election law, which is far from the truth. The decision of Our Party (Nasa stranka), SDP, and DF not to participate in further negotiations did not shake the international duo, on the contrary, the Neum episode started, and it was confirmed that they were never seriously counted on except in the above–mentioned sense.
But, for the first time, the presidents of the opposition parties refused to be a ficus in the game of international mediators, where fundamental negotiations are always conducted betweenDragan Covic and Bakir Izetbegovic because constitutional reform can be carried out without the three. There is no doubt that all Serbian national parties will support the changes to the election law, so the possibility of the opposition blocking an agreement is minimal.
As much as Palmer and Eichhorst tried to show that they cared about the interests of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), it is important to recall that Palmer participated in negotiations aimed at the ethnic division of Kosovo, a principle that would cause immeasurable damage to BiH’s interests.
Palmer and Eichhorst are trying to reset the political system in BiH to its original settings, bringing us back to 1995, but without a strong High Representative and the support of tens of thousands of soldiers who tried to make a completely dysfunctional system as stable as possible.
When someone decides to start new blockades in such circumstances, as now the representatives of RS are doing, not only with state institutions, but with the new election law and federal ones, the institutions will inevitably collapse, and some new mediators will convince us that the division of BiH in the interest of peace and stability in the Balkans.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba
