Battle for a Seat in the Croatian Parliament: Once Moderate Ljubić Becomes Radical by Imitating General Glasnović

Early elections for the Croatian Parliament will be held on September 11, and nationalist rhetoric among some Croatian politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina is intensifying, writes the Patria News Agency.

The Croatian diaspora and Bosnia and Herzegovina have the right to three seats in the Croatian Parliament. HDZ won all three mandates without problems in the last elections. If HDZ wants these three seats in the Parliament again, they will have to make special efforts.

Namely, their former candidate, General Željko Glasnović, who won as many as 24,444 votes or 85.69 percent of the votes from the diaspora and BiH in the last elections for the Croatian Parliament, is running as an independent candidate this year.

Glasnović won the sympathy of voters with extremely radical rhetoric. For him, the so-called Herceg Bosna is still alive and legal. He believes that Croats from the diaspora have been betrayed by Zagreb, and that Croats from the diaspora and BiH must have more say when it comes to events within Croatia.

Therefore, more than 85 percent of voters from the Croatian diaspora and BiH supported this way of thinking.

The leader of the HDZ list in BiH, Božo Ljubić, did not achieve great success in the last elections for the Croatian Parliament. He won only 2,936 votes or 12 percent. Because of this, Ljubić is trying to imitate General Glasnović this year. A few days ago, he congratulated Croats on the 23rd anniversary of the so-called Croatian Republic of Herceg Bosna, which was abolished on August 14, 1996, when all powers of the "Government of Herceg Bosna" were transferred to the Government of the Federation of BiH.

-The Croatian Republic of Herceg Bosna has not been abolished nor abandoned - Ljubić said in his congratulatory message to the citizens.

-Herceg Bosna, Ljubić told voters, is not only relevant as an inspiration for the fight for Croatian equal rights in BiH, but Herceg Bosna is also relevant as a legal and political fact-

From 1994, Ljubić was the Minister of Health of the Republic of BiH, from 1996 he was the Minister of Health of the Federation of BiH, from 2006 the Minister of Communications and Transport of BiH, from 2009 a delegate in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliament, and from 2010 a representative in the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament. He was also a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo. Ljubić benefited greatly from Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but now he has decided to turn to neighboring Croatia.

He who betrays his own country will betray another, there is no doubt about that!