Croatia's President: Komsic is not a legitimate representative of Bosnian Croats

N1

The Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, may have been elected according to the law but he is not the legitimate representative of the Croat people in the country, Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic told N1 on Sunday.

According to most Croatian and Bosnian Croat officials, the Croat member of the Bosnian Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, is not a legitimate representative of the Croat people in Bosnia because he was elected by the Bosniaks.

According to Bosnia’s Constitution, the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat members of the tripartite Presidency are elected from the Federation Entity (FBiH), while the Bosnian Serb member is elected from the other entity, Republika Srpska (RS).

Many of the numerically superior Bosniaks in FBiH abandoned the principle of voting along ethnic lines and gave their vote to Komsic who advocates a citizen-oriented society, rather than ethnic division.

This way Komisic’s voters effectively kicked the Croat nationalist candidate Dragan Covic, leader of Bosnia’ Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), out of the three-member presidency.

Covic had won most of the votes in Croat-majority areas within the entity but that was not enough.

“He is legal, but he is not legitimate,” said on Sunday Croatian President Kolinds Grabar Kitarovic.

“The ethnic representative must also be the political representative. It is up to Croats to decide. If Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina accept him (Komsic) as their legitimate representative, then we will accept him as such as well,” Grabar-Kitarovic said.

“However, as long as the Croat people in Bosnia do not accept him, for me, he is not legitimate,” she said.

Grabar-Kitarovic said that her country protects the interests of Croats in Bosnia.

“What we ask for is equal rights, for them to elect their own political representatives at all government levels,” she said.