Behind closed doors, on Monday night Derek Chollet hosted the presidents of SDA and HDZ, Bakir Izetbegovic and Dragan Covic. Themes were usual – stability, European, and NATO path. But the key, the inevitable topic was the election law. The messages were just as in previous years, months, and weeks. There is no agreement.
After Palmer and Escobar, Derek Chollet. Another diplomat from the United States (U.S.) who is dealing with the changes to the Election Law in our country. Although he stated that the support of all parties was needed for more credible elections, he invited only the presidents of the SDA and HDZ to talk. The reason, among other things, is to encourage them to lead. And here is the message of the mentioned local leaders after thismeeting:
“Urgent amendments to the Election Law and limited constitutional changes must respect the rights and equality of the constituent peoples and avoid discrimination,” said Dragan Covic, president of the HDZ Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
“U.S. friends are with us, but they expect us to lead the processes to offer us solutions and they are very persistent in saying that Mr. Covic and I should offer solutions, so we are roughly on the same page as we have been so far,” told SDA President, Bakir Izetbegovic.
That means they are nowhere near an agreement or a solution. So, we look at the same scenario again. This is one of manyattempts of the international community to force the mentioned duo to compromise. One of them was the Mostar Agreement, which they signed. Thanks to its first part, after 12 years, elections were held in the city on the Neretva, and its second part obliged them to deal with changes to the changes to BiH Election Law.
“These two gentlemen have an agreement and consent to work on it. Of course, that is not enough, we need a majority for amendments and changes to the Election Law and a two-thirds majority, or much larger for amendments to the Constitution, thus we need a much wider range of political subjects, ” notedJohann Sattler, Head of the European Union (EU) Delegation to BiH.
So the math has been clear for a long time. Without the opposition, there are no changes to the Election Law. Even though they have participated in the talks so far, they have not been invited to them now. And the answer to the question why and what is the goal of friends from the international community – was given by them:
“One gets the impression that negotiations with the ruling coalition at the state level have gone far and it seems that there are already outlines of their agreement and now some kind of alibi is being asked from the opposition to support what they are already agreeing on,” said Edin Forto, president of Our Party (Nasa stranka).
“The ruling party is agreeing on an election law that increasingly resembles the establishment of a third constituency. What will be pressured is that the opposition agrees to participate in amending the Constitution, and then the ruling party will adopt amendments to the election law as they think it is appropriate. I am not sure it is possible to do it in that way, ” believes Sasa Magazinovic, SDP deputy in the BiH House of Representatives.
Those who are more informed also think that it will not go like that. More specifically, the credibility of the U.S. envoys who have been visiting our country lately is in question.
“It’s not the highest rank of U.S. diplomacy. Gabriel Escobar is the 5th ranked U.S. diplomat, Derek Chollet is one of the advisers at the top of the State Department, so it’s not the first echelon of the State Department. One should have doubt about whether they and their arrival will be able to change the situation on the field, ” explained Hamza Karcic, professor of international relations at the Faculty of Political Sciences.
And the situation on the field looks something like this – while foreigners are dealing with the Election Law, state institutions, where that law should ultimately be adopted, are blocked. By the end of the year, there is less than a month and a half, and the budget was never adopted. Citizens fear war, young people are leaving, foreign investors are not coming, the economy is on its knees, prices are rampant, and the coronavirus is taking lives. Welcome to BiH!
E.Dz.
Source: Federalna
