Grand opening of Covic’s new office in Mostar: Is Mostar the Croat capital?

Dragan Covic organized a grand opening celebration of his new office in Mostar as the Croat member of BiH Presidency.

At the same time, the fact that roof of the Presidency building in Sarajevo is leaking, and residence Konak requires urgent repairs, did not stop Covic from going after his plan to open his office in Mostar instead of finding a solution for repairing the existing offices.

It is obvious that Covic has a great deal of work in Mostar so he had no choice but to open an office on Nikola Subic Zrinski's lane with tax payers’ money.

Besides Covic, Mladen Ivanic, member of Presidency BiH from RS has an office in Banja Luka. Back in 1996, Momcilo Krajisnik had his office in East Sarajevo.

Borislav Paravac continued this practice – besides his office in BiH Presidency, he had 'field offices' in Lukavica and Banja Luka. All office running costs have been covered by the state budget.

After Ivanic had taken over mandate of Presidency member, the office of President of RS Milorad Dodik requested an eviction of Ivanic from the RS government building, so a new accommodation was to be found for this member of BiH Presidency.

According to the Rules of Procedure, regular and emergency sessions of the collective chief of state are to be held in Sarajevo, at the Presidency building, unless a decision is made about holding a session elsewhere.

Such a decision can be expected now; it is quite possible that Bakir Izetbegovic, Dragan Covic and Mladen Ivanic will hold meetings in Mostar and in Banja Luka. It is a question of time when Covic and Ivanic will complain about having to come to Izetbegovic all the time.

Now they can alternate – a little bit here, a little bit there? Perhaps that is not so bad after all; Izetbegovic and Covic can have their cars washed on the way because a decision has been made to hire carwash service in Mostar and 4000 KM worth job was given to Guma M Company from Mostar.

Although we have requested an official information from BiH Presidency about costs of building and equipping the offices in Mostar and Banja Luka, and what will happen with those after mandates of the existing Presidency members come to an end, so far we have not got any answers to our questions.

However, considering the look of the office, surely hundreds of thousands KM were spent. This opening celebration was attended by members and selected HDZ officials only, while neither Bosniak nor Serb representatives attended. Thus it can be expected for this office to host political party collegiums.    

To be completely honest, such practice has become regular in the BiH Presidency building as well, so all dramatic meetings of coalition partners (SDA, SBB and HDZ) were held in this building and, as always, the taxpayers picked up the bill.

Considering that HDZ BiH and Covic's idea of moving FBiH Government to Mostar failed (although some of the ministries are placed just there), he found the way to send a message that Mostar is the Croat capital!

Analyzing work of Presidency members so far, few have not noticed the extent to which it is emphasized the people that a member of Presidency comes from. Almost every official communication specifies if Presidency member is from RS or the Croat people or the Bosniak people.

And while Bosniaks swear by unity and strength of Bosniak uniting, they seem to miss seeing ever growing dissolution of the state. While Bosniaks are 'uniting', Croat and Serb political representatives are strengthening their local communities in every possible way, and to the detriment of the state.