Zdravko Grebo, a retired university professor said that Bosnia’s newly elected Croat Presidency member Zeljko Komsic is a “different kind of Croat” than his main election opponent, Dragan Covic.
“The man is a Croat, but a different kind of Croat than Dragan Covic. His election is completely normal, to me,” Grebo said.
Dragan Covic, the Leader of the nationalist Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) competed for his second term in office of the Croat Presidency member against his main opponent, Zeljko Komsic, from the centre-left Democratic Front who served two terms in 2006 and 2010.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency consists of three members, each coming from the three constituent peoples in the country: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.
However, Komsic's legitimacy is contested by all the major Croat parties in the country saying that his election was not legitimate because he was not elected by Croats, but by Bosniaks.
Grebo told N1 that Covic won a huge number of votes but that Komsic received impressive support.
“Komsic probably was elected by Bosniaks, but those votes are a protest against the ethnic form of election (in Bosnia),” Grebo added. “Election of Presidency members is important for people in this country because those three represent ethnic leaders.”
According to him, the general election results were expected because of the ethnocentric political atmosphere in this country. There are many other types of affiliation, but the most important one in Bosnia is the ethnic affiliation.
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When asked about the newly elected Serb Presidency member Milorad Dodik’s decision not to meet with the outgoing Austrian Ambassador to Bosnia, Grebo noted that “such things don’t happen in diplomacy.”
“I don’t know what Dodik was thinking. Maybe he was taken by the triumph of his victory,” he added.
