Bosnia Federation Entity's New Coalition Agreed

After the Prime Minister of the Federation, Nermin Niksic, a Social Democrat, met the vice-president of the Croatian Democratic Union, Marinko Cavara, on Tuesday in Sarajevo the two leaders agreed to start formation of a new parliamentary majority in Bosnia's biggest entity by Friday.

Niksic told reporters after the meeting with Cavara that in order to dismiss the Federation entity President and Vice-President, who belong to parties that they now want out of the entity government, they will need the support of other smaller parties.

“A two-thirds majority is needed [as support in parliament], which would be 66 votes,” Niksic said. “These four parties have 56 votes, we will see who else will join us.”

The new four-party coalition so far comprises the Social Democratic Party, SDP, which is currently in government, the Alliance for the Better Future of Bosnia, SBB, and the two sister Croatian Democratic Union parties, HDZ BiH and HDZ 1990.

That means that the current coalition of the SDP, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and two smaller Croatian parties, the Croatian Party of Right, HSP, and the People's Party Work for Progress, NSRZB, has to be ended.

The President of the Federation, Zivko Budimir, is from the HSP and the Vice-President, Mirsad Kebo, comes from the SDA.

The new Federation entity coalition came about after the SDP-SDA coalition broke up at all levels of government.

The SDP leader, Zlatko Lagumdzija, has now demanded that Bosnia's state government dismiss the SDA ministers at state level but the state Prime Minister, Vjekoslav Bevanda, a member of HDZ BiH, has not yet made a move in that direction.

After the SDP ended its coalition with the SDA, it turned first to the right-oriented SBB, led by Fahrudin Radoncic, owner of the most read daily in Bosnia, Dnevni avaz.

Radoncic said he would take the post of the Security Minister after the SDA minister is dismissed. The SDP said it would take the Defence Ministry after the procedures of dismissing the SDA ministers are completed.