Some HDZ leaders losing support ahead of internal elections

(Patria) - Some members of HDZ BiH closest to party president Dragan Čović are facing serious accusations from members and voters, a few days before the campaign for internal elections begins.

The Chairperson of the Municipal Council in Novi Travnik, Fabo Stanić, accused Zdenka Džambas, the president of HDZ in that municipality, in a statement to local media, of pursuing a controversial policy that harms citizens in that local community, primarily Croats represented by HDZ.

Džambas could not comment on the announcement that a bloc of councilors, including those from HDZ, might be formed in the Municipal Council in Novi Travnik, which would offer citizens a more liberal policy than the current one, dissatisfied with the existing policies.

“I really don’t have such information,” Džambas said in a phone conversation with the Patria agency.

Džambas stated that internal elections in HDZ are starting, with elections for municipal committees beginning in mid-June, but she could not prejudge any results.

Džambas, who was also previously the deputy speaker of the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entered the Assembly of the Central Bosnia Canton in the October elections with only 1,980 votes, and from there to the House of Peoples of the Federal Parliament. Of the nine HDZ members who won mandates in the cantonal assembly, Džambas is in seventh place in terms of the number of votes won.

The media previously linked Džambas to abuse of office and the employment of family members in public enterprises and institutions.

Analysts in Bosnia and Herzegovina who follow the electoral process point out that almost all parties in the country are burdened by the problem that the party leadership, when selecting cadres for lower levels of government, does not listen to the voices of party members and voters, but gives preference to cadres who are often controversial.