Bosnia’s Croats Blame Bosniaks For Stalemate

Croat and Bosniak [Muslim] parties in Bosnia have accused one another of blocking the formation of a state government 14 months after the last general election.

The country’s biggest Croat parties, the Croatian Democratic Union in Bosnia, the HDZ BiH, and its sister party, HDZ 1990, after a joint meeting in Mostar, said the mainly Bosniak Social Democrats and Party of Democratic Action, SDA, had blocked the formation of a new government by making unreasonable demands.

The two Croat leaders, Dragan Covic and Bozo Ljubic, said they had offered significant giveaways to bring about a power-sharing deal, but without result.

At issue is who gets the post of state Prime Minister, one of ten ministerial posts in the Council of Ministers, the highest executive body.

Since October 2010, when general elections were last held in Bosnia, the six political parties that won most voices have failed to agree over the composition of the Council of Ministers.

The Social Democrats, who did best in the election in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the larger of Bosnia’s two autonomous entities, earlier nominated Slavo Kukic, a professor from Mostar.

But Kukic did not get enough support in the State Parliament in July 2011 after Bosnian Serbs and Croats combined to veto the choice.

Zlatko Lagumdzija, the Social Democrat leader, while meeting Patrick Moon, US ambassador to Bosnia, in Sarajevo on December 7, said the HDZ was the party most responsible for deepening the crisis.

Lagumdzija said Croat calls for a third, mainly Croat entity in the country, in addition to the Federation and the Republika Srpska, had further raised tensions.

The Croat parties respond that a third entity is necessary if Croats are not be marginalised by far more numerous Bosniaks in the Federation.

Two HDZs and two major Serb parties, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, led by Milorad Dodik, and Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, led by Mladen Bosic, signed a statement of cooperation in the process of forming a state government in March 2011.

The agreement was signed after the Social Democrats formed a government in the Federation entity without either of the two main Croat parties.

Instead, they formed a government with the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action party, SDA, and two small Croat parties, the People’s Party for Work for Progress and Croatian Party of Rights.