Deep Divisions Remain: Part of the Party Loyal to Tihić Disappointed by Osmanović's Silence!

The Main Board of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) will be held tomorrow in Goražde, reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP). However, as we learn from several high-ranking party officials, stabilization of the party is not expected after the deep divisions within the SDA Presidency that became apparent just over a month ago.

Namely, at that time, 13 members of the SDA Presidency, led by Vice-President Adil Osmanović, publicly demanded that the outvoting in the party leadership be stopped, claiming that the agreement from the Convention had been violated.

A meeting was also held with the Deputy President of the SDA, Bakir Izetbegović, where the establishment of a "mechanism" to prevent outvoting was agreed upon, after Bakir Alispahić was dismissed from the Cadre Commission.

However, from that time until today, there has been no information that anything has been done to overcome the divisions, nor that this mechanism has been proposed, let alone adopted. Apparently, the Main Board will not discuss it either, and the SDA will go into the October elections deeply divided.

Most of the Presidency members who expressed disagreement with the outvoting in the party leadership, as Patria learns, are dissatisfied with the silence of Osmanović, who reacted at first, and then withdrew.

This means that the members of the SDA Presidency who still recognize Sulejman Tihić as president are effectively looking among themselves for another leader who would oppose the arbitrariness of Izetbegović and his closest associate Asim Sarajlić within the party. SDA Main Board member Alija Budnjo has also shown more courage in public statements than Osmanović, who is the Vice-President of the SDA, according to Patria's sources in the SDA Presidency.

- Osmanović had to be persistent in what we asked for, and that is the unity of the SDA and the prevention of a coup and arbitrariness. But, the 13 of us reacted against it, we went public and said what we thought, but nothing happened afterwards. Now we can only expect individual retaliation against each of us – one of the SDA Presidency members told us.