ALL DEADLINES PASSED: Did Plenković block the agreement between Izetbegović and Čović?

By: Rasim Belko

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Political agreements and deals in Bosnia and Herzegovina are made to be broken, giving the public a temporary "chewing gum" while the ruling political elites come up with a new trick, agreement, deal…

In a country where politics is conducted through quarrels and inter-ethnic conflicts, the question is whether anyone will ever muster the strength to record them all in one place. 

Because, although there is no exact evidence, it can rightly be said that in our country there is a monthly agreement that will be broken. 

One such agreement was signed on June 17, 2020. Today, some seven months later, that agreement is almost forgotten, while on the day it was signed it was one of those historic ones. 

It was signed by the leaders of the two largest ethnic political organizations in the sub-state entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We could say that the leaders of the SDA and HDZ, Bakir Izetbegović and Dragan Čović, were overly optimistic when they gave themselves a deadline of at most six months to resolve the BiH Election Law. 

And they failed to resolve it for years. And the question is whether they will ever be able to resolve it. 

Politics is the art of the possible, and Izetbegović and Čović are artists of the impossible. The Election Law, due to ultimate demands, is a difficult topic, but it seems that no one is interested in resolving this issue before entering the 2022 election year. 

Čović sees only one thing in the Election Law - the last chance to secure his and the HDZ's political eternity on the political sky of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And one thing must be admitted, he has withstood many blows and persisted in his intention. 

However, Čović missed a good opportunity to realize his ideas of eternal politics through the implementation of what was agreed in the July agreement. Whether intentionally or not, is the question.

Because, after the deadline expired, the agreement became null and void, and solutions to the electoral legislation are nowhere in sight. 

The plan was to finalize the proposal for amendments to the Election Law by the end of January and for that law to be adopted in the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH sometime by June. Based on what we see now, that is impossible by June, and as the year progresses, the impossibility will only increase. 

Izetbegović, with or without an agreement, will gain nothing, and that was clear even without the agreement signed under pressure from the domestic public and international politics, in order for the elections in Mostar to be held. 

And that is not much of a surprise, because the SDA has long ceased to care about what statesmanship is.  The stalemate has long been our reality.

In mid-September, the leaders of the SDA and HDZ met to discuss the implementation of the agreement, but the meeting only produced new disagreements. 

First, Izetbegović said that there would be nothing from the agreement until the 2018 General Elections were implemented, until the filling of the Constitutional Court of the FBiH was completed. 

Čović responded that the SDA wants to negotiate but that nothing gets agreed upon. 

At the end of his statement, he then said: "If we do not make changes to the Election Law, the agreement is no longer valid." 

The agreement is a thing of the past, and we are sure that in the time ahead we can expect more signed agreements that will ultimately bring nothing. 

There are many reasons, and one of the key ones could be hidden in the Banski Dvori. More precisely, in the political tricks of the current Croatian government and its leader Andrej Plenković. 

Because, if the issue of the Election Law is resolved, Croatian politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in official Zagreb, would lose one of the most frequently used arguments for "Croatian endangerment." 

Both Čović's and Plenković's HDZ profit from this Croatian endangerment by defending Croats who are increasingly fleeing both Bosnia and Croatia. 

At the same time, their political buddy Bakir Izetbegović will use this unresolved issue in the upcoming campaigns as a victory in which he did not give Čović political eternity. 

And so on in circles. The trio Izetbegović, Čović, Plenković will swim on the waves of a "deal" that does not exist for a long time yet.  

Time passes, the world moves forward, while Bosnia and Herzegovina is increasingly dragged into the darkness of despair, depression, and lawlessness by ethno-mafia elites. 

There are fewer and fewer of us, but we are still a big problem, both for ourselves and for the world.