ZAGREB, October 15, 2018 – Croat political parties have scored very poor results in their efforts to secure at least symbolic participation in the Serb entity authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s general elections on October 7, and judging by the current situation, Croat interests in the entity parliament will be represented by Croat members of Serb political parties, according to local media.
According to the Euro Blic news portal, the only deputies in the Republika Srpska National Assembly who declared Croat ethnic background before the elections are members of Milorad Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the RS Socialist Party and the Serb Democratic Party (SDS).
Based on so-called compensation slates, the Croat seats in the entity parliament will probably go to Željka Stojičić of the SNSD, Andrea Dorić of the SP, and Ivanka Marković of the SDS.
There is one more seat in the quota for the Croat ethnic group, but it is still not known who it will go to because not all ballots have been counted yet.
Four seats are reserved for Croats and Bosniaks each in the RS parliament based on amendments to both entities’ constitutions, adopted in line with a ruling by the Constitutional Court that concluded that all constituent peoples in the country are equal, regardless of which entity they live in.
In line with the ruling, each of the constituent ethnic groups is guaranteed the right to a minimum number of seats in both entities’ legislative and executive authorities, including parliamentary seats and ministerial positions.
A Croat coalition called “Pro-European Bloc”, including the Croat Party (HS), won 1.18% of the vote, failing to pass the election threshold of 3%. A coalition headed by the HDZ BiH party scored even worse, winning only 0.16% of the vote.
The HDZ BiH itself fared slightly better, with its candidate for the Croat vice-president of Republika Srpska, Josip Jerković, even though that post has only symbolic importance and does not entail any substantial powers.
Jerković, the Croat entity vice-president in the past four years, won around 2,000 votes, twice as much as Jozo Barišić of the HS. Which of the two candidates will be appointed RS vice-president will eventually be decided by voters from abroad, whose ballots are still being counted.
Bosniaks fared slightly better than Croats because their voice in the entity parliament will be heard through a coalition led by the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which won 3.5% of the vote and at least three parliamentary seats.
Ramiz Salkić of the SDA was the candidate for the Bosniak vice-president of the RS, winning 2.5% of the vote, twice as much as independent candidate Ćamil Duraković, a former mayor of the eastern town of Srebrenica.
