Miro Lazović: We will not accept the dictate of the majority in the City of Sarajevo

The bloc of left-wing, civic, and independent representatives in the City Council of Sarajevo today left the constitutive session due to the continuous legal violence of the majority gathered around SDA and SBB. Miro Lazović, vice-president of SDP BiH and head of the SDP BiH councilors' club in the Sarajevo City Council, stated that such a move was announced on Friday and is the result of a joint agreement by the left bloc, reports Patria.

- The conditions for continuing the constitutive session were not met due to violations of the Rules of Procedure and the Statute of the City of Sarajevo. We believe that an inter-party agreement must be reached before the continuation of the constitutive session, which would achieve an agreement between all parties participating in the City Council, and in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, an adequate distribution of councilors in working bodies would be carried out.

We do not accept the composition of the Election and Appointment Committee, which was adopted at the beginning of the constitutive session through arbitrariness and outvoting, because this act represents a drastic violation of Article 16 of the Rules of Procedure of the City Council and indicates a practice where the dictate of the majority would be above the rules and statutory norms. This practice is unacceptable for SDP and it compromises democratic practice, and certainly the values of the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Immediately after the interrupted session, the SDP BiH club requested a meeting of representatives of all parties with the President of the City Council. The proposal was accepted and an inter-party meeting will be organized on Wednesday, February 15, 2017, where the principles of distributing councilor positions in accordance with party affiliation would be agreed upon, based on the Rules of Procedure of the City Council - Lazović stated.

Already in the first part of the constitutive session, councilors gathered around SDA and SBB showed great arrogance and complete disregard for the Rules of Procedure. The clubs of the left bloc sent a joint letter on Friday, seriously warning the majority and presenting them with four demands.

There has been no response to date, and the councilors were forced to boycott the session and thus resist the suspension of democratic rights and procedural provisions. The goal of the left bloc is for all procedures to be carried out in accordance with the valid regulations adopted by the City Council, and they will not give up until these regulations are respected and until legal violence and arrogance are abandoned. In their letter, the left-wing councilors called for a swift reaction so that important activities and projects in the interest of all citizens could be implemented.