Čović and Dodik React to SDA's Program Declaration

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The proposed Program Declaration of the SDA, which is being adopted at today's Congress, has sparked reactions from both the HDZ BiH and the SNSD. According to this declaration, the SDA sees BiH as a Republic of BiH with a single president, along with strengthening Bosnianhood and Bosnian identity, strengthening the rule of law, respecting all constituent peoples, NATO and EU integration, care for returnees, youth, workers...

The President of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, believes that the model of a civic state proposed by the Bosniak party is absolutely inapplicable, because BiH is an ethnically divided country that can only be governed through federalism.

"Playing the card of numerical superiority and 'citizenship' to ensure the dominance of one people is unacceptable and risky for BiH," said Čović for today's edition of Večernji list.

He stated that the three constituent peoples must be equal because without that, there is no BiH.

"If the Croatian people disappear from the political scene, I fear that the path will then be opened for the division of BiH between the other two peoples," said Čović.

He says that HDZ BiH pursues an extremely balanced policy between "political Sarajevo and Banja Luka," and that this will continue in the future.

"We will not justify ourselves to anyone, but will seek a way to stabilize BiH. Our philosophy is a well-ordered legal state. Only in such a BiH will the smallest people be well off," states Čović.

Member of the BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, also reacted, stating that he will read the SDA Declaration carefully. He said there is no "Republic of BiH," and as far as Serbs are concerned, for them there is the Republika Srpska.

"If they are allowed to do something like that, then it is perfectly normal for us to consider that we are allowed to deal with the issue of self-determination up to secession. So, we have no reason to be with others who do not want us and who do not want to accept these realities," said Dodik.

He said that the SDA cannot abolish the RS because they have neither the reason nor the possibility to do so. He stated that he accepts the Dayton BiH.

The President of the SDA, Bakir Izetbegović, said after the reactions directed at the SDA's Program Declaration that "some parties put the dissolution of BiH in their program, and that does not raise such a dust as when the SDA said that its pretension, desire and priority is a regionally organized BiH."

"These regions would be based on logical principles. These are the desires of the SDA, these are the policies we will fight for, for which we will try to convince others. Nothing in this country will happen by force. A consensus must be reached, to agree on some things. There is no need to be angry because the SDA has its own visions, its own views on the future. There is no membership in NATO until everyone agrees, but there is respect for adopted laws, movement towards NATO because we have already agreed on that. I hope we will succeed in convincing the Serbian corps, Serbian politicians, to move in that logical direction because we belong to the West. Let them watch what will happen now in Montenegro and North Macedonia. Let them see how the living standard of those people is rising. One does not live from stories about wars with the Turks, about wars with NATO, as some politicians do. One must see what one lives from and move in the right direction," stated the President of the SDA.