Arnaut: What do they need bodyguards for, but journalists aren't allowed in the hall?

(Patria) - Member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Damir Arnaut, was a guest on N1's Novi dan, where he spoke, among other things, about elections, stating that they should not only be held, but according to the law, the Central Election Commission should call them next week.

"If we compare ourselves to democratic countries, elections in South Korea, Germany, Austria, the United States, no one is talking about postponing elections, and here we have been talking about it for six months in advance. There are no reasons not to call elections, and if we are in a worse situation in September, then we can talk about postponement," Arnaut said as a guest on Novi dan.

"We were one voice away from introducing electronic voting, and these parties that want to postpone elections were against that electronic voting, and the situation is getting worse every day. First, they were against electronic voting, now they are against elections. Elections are something that should not be discussed in democratic societies," he added.

Speaking about the sixth urgent session of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, he said that it made sense to hold that session, but on March 30.

"I proposed amendments to the rules of procedure back then, at the very beginning of the epidemic, and in the month that has passed, we should have held at least four sessions at which we would have adopted huge austerity measures. Our party also proposed three laws and a constitutional amendment and amendments to the rules of procedure during this month, all aimed at cutting privileges I spoke about in Parliament.

What do they need bodyguards for, but journalists aren't allowed in the hall. Why do they need representation, official phones, separate living, separate from what if they are going to report online. Hair salons are opening tomorrow, and we only decided on electronic sessions the day before yesterday," he said.

When asked who makes decisions, or who does the work that the BiH Parliament should be doing, he answered that party leaders do.

"What has become apparent in BiH is that there is an attempt by at most three party leaders - SDA, HDZ, and SNSD - to turn BiH into a party autocracy. We are officially a parliamentary democracy now, but the fact is that three party leaders decide on everything. Radmanović, Zvizdić, and Krišto are not asked anything at all - they are carrying out orders not to convene Parliament, they are hindering the work of Parliament. We have 330 million euros waiting because two delegates in the House of Peoples and one member of the Presidency cannot agree on something, and no one is asking Komšić or Džaferović," he commented.

"It is easiest in BiH to invoke competencies, that is not true. We proposed three laws that radically cut those privileges. It is the competence of the state Parliament to say that members of Parliament, members of the Council of Ministers, numerous directors at the state level will no longer have representation, drivers, phone costs, that is the competence of the state Parliament. With my law, I abolished 'white bread', that white bread still exists at the entity level.

If the entities want to do something, then let them abolish the white bread that I abolished in the state Parliament. I didn't ask Radmanović anything, but demanded that he respect the rules of procedure and put those proposals on the agenda, but they didn't want to because they don't want to give up those privileges. Look at this, it's a trivial example, but it shows how far corruption goes. They had an excuse in informal conversations that the Crisis Staff mandated that we do not meet for more than 60 minutes, which I am not even sure is true, and that we should respect the measures, and then at the same time the restaurant in the building of the Parliamentary Assembly is open and several MPs had a lavish lunch in that restaurant that day, which is beyond my comprehension, not to mention that it violates all possible measures and establishes a privileged caste. You now have a caste in BiH in this society that can go to a restaurant in the Parliament building, eat, drink, probably on representation, while the economy stagnates," Arnaut emphasized for N1.