Ivanić wrote to RTRS editorial board: When is my turn to guest?

Member of the BiH Presidency from Republika Srpska, Mladen Ivanić, sent a letter to the RTRS editorial board, demanding equal treatment for elected representatives of Republika Srpska, but received no response. Ivanić's cabinet sent the letter to the RTRS Information Desk to the media.

- I kindly ask you to provide me with the date you have, I am quite sure, planned for my guest appearance, respecting the program principles of the Law on Radio Television of Republika Srpska. I carefully watched the entire evening show of the public service on Saturday, with a very interestingly conceived concept, which you dedicated to the guest appearance of the President of the Republic.

I believe that you, a few days before the official start of the election campaign, are keen to respect the constitutional obligation of objective public information, as well as the Law on RTRS, which stipulates "production and editing of programs in accordance with the highest professional criteria, independent of the views of state bodies, political parties and interest groups".

I believe that you will respond to this letter, unlike the previous ones from my cabinet that you ignored or sent curt replies of no real significance. I believe that you, as a public service for all residents of Republika Srpska, are keen to treat the elected representatives of Republika Srpska completely equally, in the way you did before my mandate, when the representative of another political option held the position of the Serb member of the BiH Presidency. And I, I will remind you, was elected by more than 317,000 people in Republika Srpska.

As you know, the Law on RTRS also guarantees the equal confrontation of different viewpoints. In addition to your regular obligation to ensure that all actors of public life, including political ones, are equally represented in the TV program, I will also remind you that during this show, many untruths, and even insults, were made against me, as the member of the BiH Presidency from Republika Srpska. An additional reason why this fact should not be ignored is that it is the period just before the start of the election campaign, and by coincidence - in the elections on October 7th, I am a rival candidate to your guest, who disseminated this information during his multi-hour guest appearance.

Otherwise, in the public service show where I will be a guest, the youth wing of my political party should not be sitting and asking questions, as was the case with Mr. Dodik's guest appearance and the SNSD youth in the studio. I am truly willing to answer all specific questions that interest people in Republika Srpska.

I believe that you will respond to my letter today, no later than 2 PM, so that we can jointly agree on a guest appearance date, any day before the official start of the election campaign. With the aim, as stated in the Law on RTRS, of strengthening the democratic spirit, mutual understanding and tolerance - states Ivanić in the letter to which he received no response.