The three main nationalist parties in Bosnia have taken the top three positions in the upper house of the country’s parliament that was formed on Thursday, nearly four months after elections.

The House of Peoples is composed of 15 representatives, with five representing each of the three majority ‘constitutive’ ethnic groups – the Bosniaks, the Croats and the Serbs.

The new Chairman of the upper house is Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the strongest Bosniak party, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA). Dragan Covic, the leader of the strongest Croat party, the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ), is one of his deputies while the other is Nikola Spiric, from the Serb Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD).

The vote was preceded by the voting on the presidents of the national clubs for the three groups in the HoP.

The president of the Bosniak club is Asim Sarajlic, SDA, while his deputy is Denis Becirovic, from the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Both president and deputy of the Croat club are from the HDZ, Lidija Bradara and Barisa Colak, respectively. It is the same case with the Serb club, with both president Sredoje Novic and deputy Dusanka Majkic being SNSD members.

Apart from Izetbegovic, Sarajlic and Becirevic, the members of the Bosniak club are Amir Fazlic, SDA, and the leader of the Union for a Better Future (SBB) Fahrudin Radoncic.

All but one of the Croat club members are from the HDZ. Apart from Covic, Bradara and Colak, Marina Pendes is from the same party, while Zlatko Miletic comes from the Democratic Front (DF).

The Serb club, again, has a similar composition. Novic, Majkic, Spiric and Lazar Prodanovic are SNSD members, while member Mladen Bosic is from the Serb Democratic Party (SDS).