Radoncic in Telering: Serbs and Croats should be tied to Sarajevo instead of repelled

SBB president Fahrudin Radoncic was a guest in TV show Telering. Asked by journalist Mato Djakovic why he did not enter the politics much sooner, Radoncic said he followed Donald Trump's recipe, the one every country needs.

- First you have to prove yourself on the intellectual, media and creative grounds, building construction, creating new values... and then you put yourself at disposal of your people and try to build things of community interest, Radoncic explained.

Radoncic spoke about the political relations in BiH, the relations between him and SDA president Bakir Izetbegovic, the request for revision of the lawsuit against Serbia, marking of January 9, election of the Croat member of BH Presidency...

Asked to explain why there were no public works in FBiH, which he promised after his coming to power, Radoncic said that SBB entered somebody else's train 'after SDA's begging because Federation was in collapse'. Unfortunately, he added, the government lost a year and a half in terms of infrastructure, building construction, stopping emigrations of young people 'because they were busy framing him'.

- They were busy framing Fahrudin Radoncic, to take energy away from me and my talent for creating new values. They have partly succeeded. We were putting up with that until October 3... The other side, one person in particular, and I mean Mr. Izetbegovic who I think of differently from SDA, saw that as a sign of weakness. Now he knows that's not the case, Radoncic said.

Speaking of the upcoming 2018 elections, Radoncic said that he expected the victory of SBB. He plans to offer to the other parties an entirely different concept of coalition.

- We will not go creating any coalition such as the one between SDA – HDZ – Alliance for change and DF, which was like 'positions are up for grabs, let's take them'. And now we have all kinds of dilemmas such as where this road section should cut through. Let's agree on terms of our programs, development terms, roads... and then we agree terms of coalition, Radoncic said.

Asked to comment on Bakir Izetbegovic, SDA president, Radoncic remarked that Izetbegovic 'acted like a sultan' and added 'It is the high time he left the power as he is the last kind of war leader with 25 years of unsuccessful governing.'

He also opined that SDA is the last political party in Europe so tightly tied to religious community, and that he believed that Bosniaks would experience a sort of political and national emancipation.

- SDA has merits from the war, but since 1995 it has not produced any economic result worth noting, Radoncic said.

- I hope that somebody in the Islamic community will say that perhaps they are giving people wrong instructions, that they should try something new. I'm an optimist in that sense. I trust that will happen at the next elections, he added.

Speaking about Izetbegovic's statement that SBB should return mandates if they planned to exit the power, Radoncic said that Izetbegovic could neither give nor take from him 'even though he learned how to do that...'

- Izetbegovic should secure 52 signatures in the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament, signatures of Mr. Cavara and 2 vice-presidents... and he should secure 22 signatures from the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly BiH, and we will gladly transfer the power to him, Radoncic said. He expressed his doubts about anyone wishing to enter the power in place of SBB on the eve of the elections. And should SBB left the coalition, 'we would have a chaos in the state as there would be no parliamentary majority.'

- Somebody is wishing for such a collapse, to get his own small state just for himself, he emphasized.

President of SBB also criticized SDA for the lack of concrete solutions for the problems in BiH, including the Croat issue, interBosniak relations, the issue of Bosniak – Serb dialogue 'that Vucic talks more about than all of us Bosniaks together'.

Radoncic disagreed with Djakovic's remark about Bosniaks lacking a political vision.

- SDA won less than one third of Bosniak electoral votes, same with Izetbegovic, so they could not possibly think of themselves as 'exclusive Bosniak politics'. There are more than one Bosniak politics. There's the politics of SBB who are after large scale public projects and the society of equal opportunities... SBB advocates for stabilizing interbosniak relations, international relations, interethnic relations and, equally important, regional relations. I don't care about Mr. Dodik or Izetbegovic... Some may want Moscow but they will give up sooner or later. Others may want Erdogan; they might as well be his vassals, but they are not going to make me one. At the same time, there's under the counter politics, which would be the happiest if we were to blame Serbs and Croats for not wanting to be with us, and if we were to create a small country ruled by 5 families. Bosniaks will not allow that to happen. More than 98% Bosniaks are against the idea. A small religious country in the heart of secular Europe is not a winning concept, Radoncic said.  

He thinks that another round of war and conflict in the region is not a realistic prospect, however, he trusts that there are forces which would benefit from any new conflict in the Balkans, including some of the local forces which are hoping for it. European path for BiH can prevent something like that.

- My vision for the future is BiH as a prosperous country, beautiful, without any attempts to divide it into three and with all of us contribution to its economic rehabilitation. We all have the same problem, we need work, employment, Radoncic underlined.

He added that the existing ruling politics does not think in that way. Bosniaks are isolated. They do not talk to anybody. 'Instead of tying Serbs and Croats to Sarajevo, they are creating conflicts.'