Bosnia’s three Presidency members each sending different messages to the international community means the country has no foreign policy, Presidency candidate at the upcoming 2018 election, Borisa Falatar, told N1.

“Expressing the differing positions of the Presidency members is catastrophic for this country. Imagine what kind of a message we are sending to the outside. That means that there is no foreign policy, and that those are personal opinions.” Falatar said.

Falatar is newcomer to Bosnian politics. He was proposed as a Presidency candidate by the social liberal multi-ethnic ‘Nasa Stranka’ (Our Party), and he is running for the Croat post in the three member Presidency, which is comprised of a Croat, Bosniak and Serb.

Falatar worked at the UN in New York, in the cabinet of former Director-General of UNESCO, and as UNESCO coordinator for humanitarian operations in South Sudan, Libia, Syria, Iran and Palestine.

“I have been interested in politics for a long time, I studied political science. I have decided to actively deal in politics when I was fed up with politics dealing with me. Our politics is very negative, and I think it does not have to be so,” he said, quoting Pope Francis who said that politics could be the highest form of mercy.

“We need economic development, I am an economy expert who has connections within foreign institutions. We need a political atmosphere that will bring the national groups closer to each other,” Falatar said.

Falatar said he will not use populism in his campaign, as “we are all fed up with populism and confrontations”.

“That has not provided us with better schools, hospitals, it did not take us to Europe. We will offer a policy of an extended hand, with focus on economic diplomacy, which will make use of the geopolitical situation in the best possible way and make Bosnia a key partner in the region,” he said.

Falatar said he traveled across Bosnia and met with hundreds of people “who have many worries, who don’t sleep because they don’t have their pensions or because they work for a minimum wage.”

The candidate said he did not feel that Bosnian citizens are too burdened by the recent war.

“It’s something that is being served. People say there is a need for new faces, that they don’t see any hope and that is the reason why they are leaving. That is the main reason, not the unemployment,” he said.

The person who is currently at the position Falatar is running for is Dragan Covic, the leader of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). He recently made the statement that Bosnian Croats will protect neighboring Croatia’s border from Bosnia.

“That statement on ‘protecting the borders’ makes me angry, because I am sure that those people don’t think of their children as those who they will sent off to protect the borders with a gun. We want to erase borders and be part of Europe,” he said.

“Politicians here are not used to providing solutions and results,” he said, adding that “it’s time we take responsibility.”