ZAGREB, June 8, 2018 – The leader of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) Dragan Ćović was on Friday nominated by his party to run for the country’s presidency.
If elected in the general elections set for October, Ćović, who currently sits as the Croat member of the country’s tripartite presidency, will win that post for the third time.
Apart from Ćović, Diana Zelenika of the HDZ 1990 and Željko Komšić of the Democratic Front are running for the Croat member in the three-member presidency.
So far, the opposition Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP BiH) has nominated its member of parliament Denis Bećirović for the post of the Bosniak member of the collective State Presidency.
Despite attempts among left-wing parties to agree on a single candidate for that post, that did not happen and the bloc will have two candidates for the State Presidency after Komšić’s Democratic Front (DF) previously nominated him for the post of the Croat member of the State Presidency.
That fact could significantly affect the election outcome in the competition between the left-wing bloc and ethnic parties since Bežirović and Komšić count on the support of the same electorate which is expected to split over who to vote for.
The ruling Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) has announced that its vice-president Šefik Džaferović would be its candidate for the post of the Bosniak member of the State Presidency.
The incumbent president of the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik will definitely run for the post of the Serb member of the country’s tripartite Presidency in the October 7 election, according to a decision made recently by the Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).
The party, which has been led by Dodik for two decades, formally confirmed Dodik’s decision announced a month ago. The party’s main committee also decided that incumbent RS prime minister and Dodik’s close associate Željka Cvijanović would run for the post of the entity president.
Dodik will run against the incumbent Serb member of the country’s Presidency Mladen Ivanić, who will run on behalf of the Alliance for Change bloc, which is opposed to the SNSD and gathered around the Serb Democratic Party (SDS).
