During the Neum negotiations, Dragan Čović, President of the Croatian National Assembly (Hrvatski narodni sabor) BiH and HDZ BiH, rejected the Bosniak parties proposal that would almost guarantee him the position of Croat member of the Presidency and the HDZ BiH election victory in the Croatian electorate. This was confirmed by the HDZ 1990 President and a member of the HNS BiH Presidency Ilija Cvitanović during a guest appearance on the Bura Podcast.
Cvitanović said that during the negotiations on the implementation of BiH Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights rulings concerning the BiH Election Law, the Bosniak delegation tried to offer Čović a model of changes to the Election Law that could, with full homogenization of Croat electorate, significantly increase the chances of Croats electing their member of the Presidency. As it is still only a matter of chances and it would be necessary for all Croats to „vote as one“, Čović rejected the proposal without even thinking about it. In addition, they offered it in exchange for reducing the powers of the House of Peoples of the FBiH Parliament.
Cvitanović explained that the malicious perception was being made in public that in the process of electoral reform on the Croatian side, it was a matter of „ensuring only Čović and the HDZ are in power“, as the Bosniak political spin suggests daily.
„One of the ugliest theses is that Čović is asking for the Election Law reform in such a way that he is personally guaranteed the position of the Croat member of the BiH Presidency“, Cvitanović said in the Bura Podcast.
„This is one of the ugliest arguments consciously produced by a significant number of media, quasi-political analysts, political mercenaries from the Croatian people, that a solution is being sought here as to how Čović will be elected to the Presidency. Well, the rest of us Croats do not care whether Čović is elected or not. However, it managed to create public antagonism towards the overall process of amending the Election Law, especially among the Bosniak people,“ said the HDZ 1990 President.
Cvitanović explains that this was exactly the goal, because it puts increasing pressure on those who negotiate on the Bosniak side not to reach any agreement with Croat representatives.
„Such a perception was made completely maliciously that it was a matter of assuring HDZ and Čović, the party or an individual, of winning a mandate. There was a story in informal conversations like: here's your chance to be elected and reassurance that he will be elected. Of course, it was rejected. Čović is not interested in that. I felt that during Neum negotiations“, Cvitanović said.
I do not want to retell all the conversations, he added, but the man a priori refused, very clearly, without any thought and without any doubt.
„Things we set out within the HNS, no one in a single word or a comma, jumped out of that framework. Our position is clear, there is no deletion of national determinants from the Constitution, no deletion of terminology in the houses of peoples, it must be known who that house of people represents“, he declared.
By the way, in the Sarajevo media, the Croatian people are regularly reduced to second-class citizens by persistently presenting demands for the unhindered election of legitimate political representatives of constituent peoples and national minorities as so-called demands that will „forever guarantee Čović and HDZ remaining in power“. This skillfully conceals intolerance towards the Croatian people by reducing the whole story about the Election Law reform to a „workplace“ of one man.
We remind that Croatian National Assembly parties demand only consistent implementation of the BiH Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights rulings, that concern the BiH Election Law. For their own people, they do not ask for anything that the other two peoples do not have, but merely the restore of what was taken away from them by Bosniak political representatives, ie the position of Croat member of the BiH Presidency and unhindered election of their own envoys to the FBiH and BiH House of Peoples.
Dnevnik.ba