ZAGREB, October 15, 2018 – The president of the Bosnian Croat HDZ BiH party Dragan Čović said on Monday it would not be possible to form the government in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) without implementing a Constitutional Court ruling in the Ljubić case on the election of legitimate representatives of the three constituent peoples.
Speaking to reporters in Kupres, Čović said a solution to that issue must be found only through the BiH parliament.
The country held general elections on October 7 and although the votes are still being counted, it remains unknown how the House of Peoples of the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity will be formed. In it, the three constituent peoples have the same number of MPs. Given that in the past Bosniak parties formed the government in the entity by electing to the Croat bench Croats from cantons in which they did not reside, the Constitutional Court repealed the provisions of the election law which made that possible.
Prior to the October 7 elections, Bosniak parties tried to pass an unconstitutional entity election law in an attempt to implement the ruling handed down after an appeal lodged by Bozo Ljubić, a Bosnian Croat politician, but were prevented from doing so by Croat parties.
In those elections, Željko Komšić was elected as the Croat member of the BiH Presidency. Croat parties claim that he was elected thanks to the absolute majority of Bosniak votes.
“That won’t happen ever again and I hope we have enough instruments… to fully enforce the Constitutional Court ruling on legitimate political representation,” Čović said, adding that his assessment that the government could not be elected without enforcing the ruling did not mean a blockade.
