Dr. Kovačević: Čović's speech at the UN on constituent peoples contradicts what the world demands

The text of Čović's speech regarding major geopolitical movements on the world stage is, in my opinion, too pathetic, with visible balancing between different concepts, instead of expressing clear and precise positions of Bosnia and Herzegovina on these issues, assesses Slaven Kovačević, PhD in political science, commenting for the Patria agency on how he perceived Čović's speech at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

He criticizes Čović for using the UN podium after speaking about global topics to promote personal and HDZ interests, and at a place that is definitely not intended for that.

"The part of the speech about major geopolitical movements was written in diplomatic language, and it was clearly done by someone familiar with that type of communication," says Dr. Kovačević.

"However, what stands out is the assessment of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which everything that does not actually happen here was said, which would create a false impression of some progress, which is certainly not true. The same applies to the part directed towards different categories of society, where I could not agree with Mr. Čović that there is such care from government bodies towards these categories. For example, young people and their continuous outflow from the country are actually a consequence of the bad policies of the current government, which did not offer these young people a concrete perspective, which does not fully correspond to what Mr. Čović highlighted in his speech," says Dr. Kovačević.

In addition, he considers particularly inappropriate and, in diplomatic terms, incorrect, Čović's emphasis on the alleged importance of constituent peoples, when, he says, it is clear to everyone that Europe and the world are dealing with the protection of basic human rights at the individual level, and not at all at the collective level.

"The part about the need to amend the Election Law of BiH with the guidance of the Constitutional Court of BiH, where HDZ offered a proposal that does not respect the basic civilizational value, which is the rule of law, with a very pronounced degree of discrimination against hundreds of thousands of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I consider extremely inappropriate for the UN General Assembly, because it does not concern them at all.
In other words, the only part that Mr. Čović forgot to mention is that Bosnia and Herzegovina has its own constitution as well as a series of other regulations that abound in various forms of discrimination, against which the whole world is fighting, where again there is a lack of expressed intention to change such a situation in accordance with civilizational values, and not according to various local interests. It would be good if that was highlighted at the session of the UN General Assembly. That is why I believe that the rule of law is the foundation of the civilized world and that we, if we want to be a civilized country, should make additional efforts to make the rule of law take hold here as well, without any kind of discrimination, including such that someone unfoundedly considers constituent peoples more important than others, even the citizens of our country, who are all together the constitution-makers, i.e., constituent elements of this country," assesses Dr. Kovačević.

He also expresses doubt that the text of Čović's speech was even agreed upon at any session of the Presidency of BiH, recalling earlier experiences that there were serious objections if the speech of any member of the Presidency of BiH at the sessions of the UN General Assembly was not previously agreed upon.

The Chairman of the Presidency of BiH, Dragan Čović, addressed the participants of the general debate of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, and after messages about how Bosnia and Herzegovina supports peace and prosperity in the world, he also said that he is "deeply convinced that one constituent people in Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be happy or prosperous if the other two constituent peoples are not," adding that he expects amendments to the election legislation to be adopted in BiH by the end of this year, Patria reports.