Meeting of SDA, SBB, and HDZ BiH Leaders Already Doomed to Fail?

On Tuesday, August 23, three coalition partners, the three party leaders Bakir Izetbegović (SDA), Dragan Čović (HDZ BiH), and Fahrudin Radončić (SBB), will sit down to discuss the current political situation, which is almost at a complete standstill in the FBiH. The FBiH Government is meeting, but the Federal Parliament is not. The meeting will be held in the Presidency of BiH building, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

The meeting of the three leaders will take place after sharp words exchanged between Čović and Izetbegović through the media. We remind you that the two have not met since the end of July, specifically before the weekend when, on July 31, Izetbegović met with the President of Republika Srpska and SNSD, Milorad Dodik, in a restaurant in Istočno Sarajevo to agree on the Coordination Mechanism and the IMF loan. An attempt to meet a few days later in Konjic failed because Čović "didn't know if they had agreed on Tuesday or Wednesday." Izetbegović told Čović that he would believe him that it was a misunderstanding, but that he would not sit down with him alone and invited Radončić to do so together.

Radončić, however, met with Čović alone at a restaurant near Mostar, and he had previously informed Izetbegović about it. The epilogue of that meeting was an agreement to return future discussions to "institutions" instead of holding them in cafes, and thus the Presidency of BiH building was chosen.

The meeting comes at a time when BiH is in a serious political crisis, when the authorities of the smaller BiH entity are preparing a referendum on January 9 ahead of the local elections, and there is no solution for Mostar...

And according to Izetbegović's statements, local elections will not be held in Mostar on October 2. The main culprit for this is Čović.

- We would resolve this crisis if the position of HDZ BiH were somewhat softer. You simply need to analyze the position of Bosniaks and Croats ten years ago in relation to Mostar and see how many concessions the Bosniak side was willing to make, how many steps they took towards some middle ground. And they have long passed that middle ground and are moving further towards what the Croats are asking for – Izetbegović told the Anadolija agency.

Izetbegović admitted that Čović is seeking dominance in Mostar and that there is a danger of one nation ruling over another. But the question is what he is willing to do to prevent it and whether the meeting on Tuesday will end in another failure.