Those who hail Bosnia most have killed the country with their election of Zeljko Komsic as the Croat member of Bosnia’s Presidency, Mario Karamatic, the head of the Croat caucus in Bosnia’s House of Peoples (HoP), told N1 on Wednesday.
“This Bosnia and Herzegovina is finished. It has ended its EU path. This kind of politics that installed him (Komsic), does not go toward the EU but toward isolationism,” he said.
Karamatic is the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) in Bosnia, and he is in a coalition with the main Bosnian Croat party in the country, the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), which has been the most vocal opponent of Komsic’s election.
Bosnia’s Presidency is composed of three members, each representing one of the three majority ethnic groups living in the country – Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. The country is also composed of two semi-autonomous entities, the Bosnian Serb-majority Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation (FBiH), shared by Croats and Bosniaks. While the Serb Presidency member is elected from the RS, the Bosniak and Croat members are elected from the FBiH.
Since there are many more Bosniaks than Croats in the Federation, Bosnian Croat representatives, particularly those of the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), have been complaining that Bosniaks are able to elect the Bosnian Croat Presidency member and that they did so to help left-leaning Democratic Front (DF) leader Komsic win the October 7 election against HDZ leader Dragan Covic, who was up for reelection to the position.
“After this imposition by the Bosniak majority, our colleagues from the HDZ have no illusions about Bosnia being worth saving,” he said.
He said that Komsic will do nothing serving the post except receiving a good salary.
“I am sending a message to the viewers that Komsic is not important, he is a puppet of extremist Bosniak politics,” he said.
Karamatic said that Komsic will not be able to submit a lawsuit against neighbouring Croatia over the construction of the Peljesac bridge, as he announced.
“(Komsic) will not have the support from the House of Peoples,” he said.
Bosnian Croat nationalists oppose the Bosniak claim that the Peljesac Bridge is blocking the country's only access to the open sea and therefore violating international maritime law.
Bosniaks tried to sue Croatia in the past but the Bosnian Croat presidency member Dragan Covic blocked that initiative.
Karamatic said that 85 per cent of Bosnian Croats who participated in the election voted for Covic, who in this election got even more votes than in 2014, when he was elected to the Presidency.
Even if voters from another Bosnian Croat Party, the Croat Democratic Union 1990 (HDZ 1990), would have voted for Covic, it would have not won him the Presidency seat, Karamatic said.
