So-called 'constituent' and 'legitimate' against Kovačević and 'fabricated verdicts'!

By: Prof. Dr. Senadin Lavić, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo

Belgrade and Zagreb installed their political parties in Bosnia in the nineties and through them have been undermining it to this day. The basis of these parties is ethnopolitics or ethnic-religious "representation" of national collectives (HDZ, SDS/SNSD). They allegedly represent entire nations - Serbs and Croats. SDA was also conceived this way! The matrix - political parties represent nations - has led to what we have in Bosnia today!

HDZ relentlessly repeats - the foundation of Bosnia are "constituent" nations, who are supposedly culturally and civilizationally different. Therefore, in the HDZ's understanding of social reality, there is a "clash of civilizations" and a fight against "unitarist forces in Sarajevo", while SNSD simultaneously fights against "political Sarajevo". The main fight is against Željko Komšić and the principles of civil society. Fascists are no longer hiding. Fascists do not want a multi-ethnic society. Fascists are threatening and have become a voice in public discourse. They want their separate flock so they can rule over it.

And now Bosnian patriots are supposed to be afraid because some primitive fascist is threatening that peace and the foundation of Dayton will be jeopardized if the talk about the rule of law and civil society continues. In a democratic social order, it is impossible to link ethnic identity with active voting rights. That is nonsensical. A citizen votes in a democracy - not nations, as ethnic-religious parties in Bosnia falsely claim. A citizen with a name and surname exercises their voting right - not national groups!

Followers of Tuđmanism do not accept this! HDZ is still trying to create a new election law for the "constituent flock", according to which a true Croat votes for a true Croat, a Bosniak for a Bosniak, and so on. This is the end of democracy and the inauguration of religious-fascist monolithic thinking. It must be said again - ethnic representation and active voting rights must not be linked in any way. The electoral process must not be reduced to a cultural-religious counting of "tribes".

Ethnic-religious parties play with the ethnic (national) identities of collectives and dispose of them as their property. The appellant before the European Court of Human Rights, Dr. Slaven Kovačević, is an obstacle to them because the implementation of the Verdict in his case must lead to a change in the legal order of the country. And that does not suit HDZ's narrative about "constitutionality" and "legitimate representation", two sweet stories that serve to fundamentally deny Bosnian nationality and to turn an ethnic group into a "sovereign nation" on "its territory", above the state and citizens. That is why an appeal was filed against the verdicts to create the impression of alleged dissatisfaction, because, for God's sake, everyone in Bosnia enjoys apartheid and discrimination. What is there to correct?!

Through the appeal against the verdicts in the Kovačević case, HDZ is trying to link active voting rights and ethnic identity, but this cannot be done in a democratic order. Croats do not vote - citizens do. The fact that someone wants to create such an election law system is another matter. HDZ is strategically trying to divide everything ethnically and turn democracy into ethnocracy. Only then would it be necessary to insist on the principle of proportionality - as much as you are, that much power you have! That does not suit "legitimate representation" in open discrimination against the majority, because democracy in Bosnia has turned into the rule of the minority over the majority.

Zagreb needs a "legitimate representative" in the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. This way, Zagreb has direct influence from the top to the bottom of the political system in Bosnia and can blackmail, exploit, rob, destroy, seize... Therefore, in a democracy, ethnic affiliation cannot be linked to active voting rights. The policy of "legitimate representation" wants to force ethnicity into the election law and thus make the will of the citizens and elections meaningless. This would permanently give Zagreb and HDZ dominance and they would decide on all important processes in the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Croatian Prime Minister Plenković believes that the European Court of Human Rights delivers "fabricated verdicts", meaning, for him, something insignificant. The "Trojka" in power will, of course, not react seriously to Plenković's provocations so as not to "disrupt" relations with HDZ. The opposition will, for the sake of form, fire a few loud blanks. And that's where it all ends!

Plenković comes from Croatia to Bosnia to say what the Election Law in BiH should be and to remind how Croats are endangered and unequal! For him, the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina "originated" in Dayton and was shaped "on the basis" of wartime events! He forgets, lost in his own paternalism, that Tuđman's Croatia committed aggression against the Republic of BiH, that someone was convicted for Joint Criminal Enterprise and that many are in prison because of it.

Not only is this insolence, an attitude of immoral cynicism, but it is absolutely anti-Bosnian primitive action that attempts to complete the ethnic division of the socio-political system. Plenković needs a Croat from HDZ in the BiH Presidency in order to definitively control half of Bosnia, just as Belgrade does in the RS entity. He wants a "representative" of Croats or a "Croatian member" to sit in the BiH Presidency, not a representative of the citizens of BiH, that is: to secure a permanent place for HDZ in the Presidency!

Plenković does not respect the will of the citizens of BiH and interprets the historical and current political situation in Bosnia quite arbitrarily. This is the result of ethnopolitics to which Bosniak "leaders" blindly swear. The fact that members of the Presidency of the state represent all citizens of BiH is suppressed!
Croats in Bosnia have been turned into a "diaspora" when voting in Croatia. From Tuđman to Milanović and Plenković, they are an important voting unit. That is why Zagreb must carefully pamper the cross-border party HDZ BiH.