Bosniaks in Upper House of Parliament Block Croat Proposal to Amend Electoral Law

“We declare this proposal harmful to the vital national interests of the Bosniak people,” said MP Asim Sarajlić of the Democratic Action Party (SDA). He said that the proposal was completely unacceptable, unilateral and unconstitutional because relevant parliament committees did not have a chance to discuss it.

The parliamentary rules of procedure provide that in case of invoking protection of vital national interests a commission consisting of three members of each national political group should be immediately convened to address the issue in question. If the commission fails to do so, the matter is referred to the Constitutional Court within five days to be dealt with under an urgent procedure.

Explaining the proposal, HDZ MP Bariša Čolak said that his party aimed to create necessary legal prerequisites for calling elections, which the Central Election Commission plans to do on 4 May so that elections can be held in October.

“We no longer have time to wait, because elections have been announced and more comprehensive changes cannot be made because we have no time to amend the constitution,” Čolak said, adding that this is why the proposal does not provide for the implementation of any of the five relevant judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights.

Čolak said that the most important thing now was to ensure the election of legitimate members of the state presidency and the upper houses of parliament at the state and entity level to prevent the domination of one constituent peoples over another.

HDZ BiH leader Dragan Čović said there were no legal conditions to hold elections after all attempts to reach a negotiated solution had failed in the last two years and the agreement signed by him and SDA leader Bakir Izetbegović in Mostar in 2020 was frustrated.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated politics section.

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!