The 'Trojka' has turned the KS Assembly into a street stand for trading influence!

By: Muamer Bandić, delegate in the KS Assembly and member of the Party for BiH Presidency

The authorities have seized power using the already perfected method of “buying turncoats”, thereby completely rendering programmatic coalition-building meaningless, dismantling it and reducing it to a market-like trading relationship, where a specific price is set for each hand for every agenda item.

By abusing the mechanism of majority decision-making, they have amended the Rules of Procedure of the KS Assembly and imposed rules that reduce democratic debate in this legislative body, which directly results in denying citizens the opportunity to hear critical examination of the ruling majority's decisions.

The Rules of Procedure, on whose norms the 'Trojka' came to power, gave every delegate the right to two discussions per agenda item, totaling 25 minutes (15+10). The Sarajevo Vučić followers have devastated the Rules of Procedure and limited this right to only one discussion, for a mere 10 minutes for the club leader, and 8 minutes for delegates who are not club leaders.

The sole purpose of this restriction of freedom of speech for elected delegates is to avoid any discussion about the bad decisions of the ruling clique and to stifle any public criticism.

The Collegium of the KS Assembly has gone a step further in trampling democracy, and without considering the opposition's views, using its numerical superiority, has unconstitutionally and against the rules introduced a new rule of combining multiple agenda items into one. With this move, we have reached a situation where one discussion is held on the reports of ten different institutions.

In practice, this means that when it comes to reports on the work of institutions in healthcare, communal economy, or any other area, delegates have the right to discuss for ten, or eight minutes for ten institutions. Therefore, these fine democrats of Vučić's caliber have generously granted/ensured us only about one minute for each institution, while voting on each report is done individually. It sounds absurd, but that is the true state of democracy in Sarajevo's Absurdistan.

Bandić: The budget has not been adopted, the KS Assembly has held only one regular session

And all of this has led us to the second half of March, and the Budget for 2025 has not yet been adopted.

What is even more detrimental, the KS Assembly has held only one regular session this year with three agenda items, which ended with an adjournment because there were not enough satisfied hands at the regular session!
It is evident that the previous dictatorial and unproductive year is repeating itself, during which only six regular and one emergency session were held. So, a total of SEVEN sessions in the entire year 2024! And not all of these seven were concluded.

The ruling clientelist clique hides this negligence and idleness from public view, as this is the easiest way for them to pursue their personal interests through institutions. Driven by this goal, they constantly abuse the mechanism of majority decision-making, turning the KS Assembly into an arena for disenfranchising political opponents.

Thus, these fake Europeans have decided to reduce the number of regular sessions of the KS Assembly, and within the agenda, reduce the number of items while increasing the number of sub-items, introducing complete chaos into parliamentary practice. A small number of regular sessions jeopardizes the equal standing of the opposition in legislative processes. In this way, opposition delegates are deliberately limited in the number of initiatives and questions to the Government or ministers, which directly weakens the control mechanisms over the work of the executive branch.

Fewer sessions mean fewer sensitive questions, and more room for violating laws and procedures. How this works can be seen in the case of appointing the legal representative of the KS Legal Representation Office.

The Commission for Election, Appointment, and Administrative Affairs, after a three-year delay, initiated the procedure for appointing the legal representative of the KS Legal Representation Office, published a public call, and appointed a Commission for conducting the procedure.

The President of the Election and Appointment Commission is Elvedin Okerić, who appoints himself as the president of the Commission for conducting the procedure. Along with him are four other commission members, two of whom are delegates from the ruling majority, and of course, not a single member from the opposition.

Such isolation of the opposition from the immediate procedure, access to acts and documents on meeting the formal requirements necessary for making a legally valid decision, limits the transparency of every process, including this one, which greatly diminishes the legitimate strength of the decisions made.

On the other hand, any procedure conducted without the opposition violates the principle of balance of power between the government and the opposition, as decisions of interest to citizens are made far from public view, non-transparently, and within a closed circle of party-loyal and government-affiliated individuals.

At the end of that telenovela, the masters of procedure did not allow the elected delegates to see any document that could confirm whether the candidates who applied meet the requirements for that position!

From the materials provided to us, we can only conclude that all acts are signed by one person, Elvedin Okerić. His signature is also on the act of the Commission for Election and Appointment by which he appointed himself as the president of the Commission for conducting the Public Call. His signature is on the act of the Commission for conducting the Public Call by which he proposes the appointment of a legal representative to the Assembly. And finally, the decision on appointment by the KS Assembly is signed again by the Speaker of the KS Assembly.

From the materials provided, we only learn that only the members of the Commission have the exclusive right to know whether all documents proving that the candidates meet the requirements for appointment have been submitted. Greater transparency prevailed in the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia 50 years ago than exists today in the Sarajevo Canton Assembly!

We experienced an even greater circus during the discussion of this agenda item, when the 'Trojka' delegates shamelessly assured us that the procedure was carried out in accordance with the law, publicly and transparently, and that our criticism of this shameful process was populist.

It seems that some people do not understand at all that no one, not even the KS Assembly, can make a legally valid decision on the election of a legal representative who is supposed to protect the property and property interests of our Canton tomorrow, without having access to the documents proving that the candidate meets all legally prescribed conditions.

This way of working is truly worrying, that important decisions concerning all of us are made in such a non-transparent manner. Avoiding and obscuring procedures cause legal uncertainty, and because of such things, citizens lose faith in institutions. Moreover, the masters of procedure, with their bullying and amateurism, have compromised the entire process, even putting the candidate for legal representative in an uncomfortable situation.

It is pure madness and a lack of elementary logic, characteristic only of totalitarian regimes, to allow commission members, who do not vote in the Assembly, access to documentation, while denying this right to delegates who, with their vote, appoint that same legal representative. This is inconceivable in orderly states!

Unfortunately, unserious people, without any political vision other than to feed their greedy eyes, have been given the power to lead very serious processes, which is why we have what we have – a broken society with a high degree of legal uncertainty and an abundance of daily procedural dilettantism. Therefore, let's not be surprised at all that Dragan and Milorad play with them so easily!