The Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) leader, Dragan Covic, on Monday, ruled out the success of the obstruction by the Bosniak SDA party and said that the new authorities in the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity would be formed by the end of this week.

Covic said that there would be no need for an intervention of the international community's High Representative Christian Schmidt.

The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) is demanding the post of Federation Prime Minister to unblock the process of government formation in the Bosniak-Croat entity, party official Refik Lendo, who was expected to take the post of entity vice-president, said last Friday.

Lendo did not show up for two meetings in Sarajevo with Lidija Bradara of the HDZ BiH party and Igor Stojanovic of the SDP BiH last week, at which they were to decide who would take the post of Federation president and who the posts of entity vice-presidents.

Lendo confirmed that his having failed to show up to the meetings was due to the SDA's decision to block government formation.

Under the Federation's constitution, the entity government can be appointed only based on a decision signed by the entity President and two Vice Presidents.

The SDA is now using this situation to blackmail the HDZ and the SDP because it was the only party that had the necessary majority in the Bosniak caucus of the House of Peoples of the Federation Parliament to nominate the Bosniak vice-president of the Federation, and Lendo fills this post.

In the Federation, the HDZ BiH and eight Bosniak and civic parties now make up the ruling majority, based on the results of the October 2022 general elections.

They agreed that Bradara should be the President of the Federation, while Stojanovic as the Serb representative and Lendo as the Bosniak representative should be the two Vice Presidents.

Today, Covic said that Schmidt did not need to intervene to unblock the government formation process, however, he admitted that the High Representative could use his broad powers under the Bonn agreement to penalise office-holders found to be breaching the Dayton agreement.

The government has already been formed at the state level and in the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now it remains to be seen how the formation of the government in the Federation will unfold.