SDP Denies Split in Bosnia's Federation Coalition

Bosnia's Social Democrat leader, Zlatko Lagumdzija, denied reports that the government of the Federation entity may have to be reconstructed following a damaging row between his party and its coalition partner, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, over policing.

Lagumdzija spoke in Sarajevo following a meeting of the four coalition parties in the Federation entity on January 26.

The row started after the SDA was outvoted on Tuesday concerning a law on interior affairs, which the SDA said would lead to the politicisation of the police force.

“The government of the Federation is functioning well and there is no reason for its reconstruction,” Lagumdzija insisted on Thursday.

What the SDA objects to in the new law, proposed by the SDP Interior Minister Predrag Kurtes, is that the director of police in the Federation would in future be responsible to the Interior Ministry and Federation government and not to the parliament of the Federation, as is now the case.

The SDA charges the SDP with effectively trying to take over the police and says the law will undermine the independence of the entity police.

Desnica Radivojevic, an SDA minister in the Federation government, said on Thursday that if the proposed law is adopted it would mean “giving up and denying all the reforms we have achieved.

“We [the SDA] think it is not good for relations within the coalition in general that we were outvoted on such an important law,” Radivojevic added.

The SDA and SDP are the two main parties in the Federation government and it is the first time since the entity government was appointed last year that they have diametrically opposed each other.

The government of the Federation entity, the larger of Bosnia's two autonomous entities, comprises four coalition partners, the SDP, the SDA, Croatian Party of Rights, HSP, and People's Party Work for Progress, NSRZB.