Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to live as a union of three completely equal constituent peoples on the entire territory of the country, said Dragan Covic, the outgoing Croat member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency and leader of the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH).
Commenting the statement of Bosnia's Archbishop, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, who said in reference to the recent general election in the country that even the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler came into power in a legal election, Covic said the Cardinal did not link his words to anyone's name.
“He made a parallel in the general process, and not by linking it to anyone's name. So do make a difference and don't make me comment on something he did not say,” Covic responded to the question regarding Puljic's words.
The Cardinal's statement came after the general election in the country when the centre-left candidate Zeljko Komsic defeated Covic, his main opponent, in the run for the post of the Croat member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency.
“We were persecuted in a legal way and Hitler came into power in a legal way. But the question is, what kind of law is that where one people is deprived of rights and is intended to be deleted, like the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Puljic said.
Following the HDZ BiH Presidency session held on Monday, Covic said it would never happen again in Bosnia that one ethnic group elect representatives to another people.
“I hope we have sufficient elements to protect that,” he added.
Covic strongly disapproved of Komsic's election, claiming he was elected thanks to the votes of Bosniaks, one of the two dominant ethnic groups in Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) entity, who along with the Croats elect two members of the Presidency. The third member is elected in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska (RS).
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Prior to this election cycle, the HDZ BiH leader was amongst the loudest advocators of the Election Law changes which would, as he was saying, secure that one people do not elect legitimate representatives in the government to other people.
