Following the failed talks regarding Bosnia’s Election Law reform, the country is about to enter an even worse political crisis, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Nermin Niksic, told N1 Wednesday, adding that interlocutors in Neum, where the latest round of talks was held, attempted to make a “dirty deal” which had failed in the end.

“I think a ‘dirty deal’ was attempted but it failed, and that this only proves that this is still the Balkans. We have the Court of Human Rights’ verdicts and instead of focusing on implementing them, we’re talking about returning to the middle ages and implementing additional segregation,” Niksic told N1’s Amir Zukic.

When asked why his party did not take part in the Neum talks, he said there are two reasons for that:

The first reason is crucial because two months ago, after the adoption of the Law on the Medicines Agency of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity, we warned the international community about what is being prepared and what is going on. We warned of a direct blow to the constitutional order in BiH. We thought it illusory to talk about the Election Law. The second reason why the three parties did not take part is because the ‘Bosniak-Croat national team’ in the talks had created a narrative about the problems in FBiH. It turns out that the FBiH is somehow a bigger problem than the decisions in RS parliament!? We don't want to bury our heads in the sand, pretend nothing is happening, buy time because deadlines are running out,” the SDP leader said.

He added that it is obvious that some people “accepted Bosnian Serb Presidency member Milorad Dodik's bullying approach.”

“The approach taken by the international negotiators and the meeting they made shows that they accepted the blackmail and that they are only pushing the story that we must talk about everything. If we could have reached an agreement, we wouldn’t need a High Representative or ambassadors [to mediate].”

He then touched upon the relation between the strongest Bosniak centre-right party, the Democratic Action Party (SDA) and the strongest Croat centre-right party – Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) saying that “history teaches us that whenever the SDA had the opportunity to choose between the HDZ BiH and the state, the SDA chose HDZ BiH,” said Nermin Niksic.

“The SDA delivered the Federation (FBiH) entity’s House of Peoples to the HDZ BiH, thus securing a majority in the state parliament. Now they are calling on us to unblock the government in the FBiH after they delivered the FBiH to the HDZ BiH,” he noted.

For this reason, Niksic said the SDP decided not to continue the talks in Neum, thus ending the practice where the SDP would “cover” SDA’s actions.