http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/daily-news/d ... cy-members


In the BiH Constitution, ethnic designation of elected members of the BiH Presidency will be erased, and in the BiH electoral law will be introduced two electoral areas in FBiH, from which will be elected two members of the BiH Presidency, who will not be from the same area, nor from the same constitutive people or representative of the others.


This is the essence of an agreement on resolving the decision in the Sejdic-Finci case agreed by Sulejman Tihic and Dragan Covic, leaders of the SDA and HDZ BiH.

Here we reproduce the integral text of the agreement:

1. In the BiH Constitution, ethnic designation of members of the BiH Presidency will be erased such that Article V, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution reads: "The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of three members: two members who are directly elected from the territory of the Federation, and one from the territory of Republika Srpska. No more than one member of the Presidency can be elected from the same people or from the others.”

Changes to the electoral law:

2. In the BiH electoral law, relevant provisions will be changed such that election of members of the BiH Presidency from the Federation is prescribed as follows:

2.1. All voters from the territory of the Federation may vote for all candidates for the BiH Presidency from the Federation. (The electoral unit is the Federation.)

2.2. Solely for the purposes of calculating election of members of the Presidency from the Federation, two electoral units that are geographic entities with approximately an equal number of people are formed:

Electoral Area 1 (Posavina, Una-Sava, Western Herzegovina, Herzegovina-Neretva, and Central Bosnia Cantons);

Electoral Area 2: (Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, Sarajevo, and Bosnian Podrinje Canton, Brcko District).

2.3. After elections, first is determined the general ranking list of all candidates for the BiH Presidency from the territory of the Federation. All candidates are ranked on the basis of total received votes from the entire territory of the Federation.

2.4. The highest ranked candidate on the general ranking list (meaning they who received the greatest number of votes from the entire Federation) is the first elected member of the BiH Presidency from the territory of the Federation.

2.5. The second elected member of the BiH Presidency from FBiH is the following candidate from the general ranking list who is not from the same ethnic category and did not receive a dominant number of votes from the same electoral unit as the first-ranked candidate.

(A dominant number of votes is more than half of votes from the total number that the candidate received from the entire territory of FBiH.)

Some details of the model should be further developed, the Tihic-Covic agreement on the method of resolving the Sejdic-Finci issue concludes.

http://rgallivan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09 ... pment.html

An Interesting Development

The most interesting thing about the recently reported HDZ-SDA agreement on reforming the process of electing Croat and Bosniak members of the Bosnian presidency is that it clearly delineates two separate entities within the Croat-Bosniak Federation.

This never happened during the controversial “Prud Process” abandoned in 2009, which proposed reconstituting Bosnia along the lines of four territorial units, so the outcry that has greeted the latest proposal is not surprising.

According to the Oslobodenje newspaper, the agreement between the leaders of the HDZ and SDA stipulates that for the purposes of electing two of the members of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, the Federation will be divided into two units. One will comprise the Posavina, Una-Sava, Western Herzegovina, Herzegovina-Neretva, and Central Bosnia Cantons, with the other made up of the Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, Sarajevo, and Bosnian Podrinje Cantons and Brcko District.

The publication of the agreement has already provoked a firestorm of opposition, most notably from the SDP, which claims that it paves the way for a three-way division of Bosnia.

But the agreement stresses that the division into two units would be solely for the purpose of electing members of the Bosnian presidency, rather than the creation of two separately governed entities. It effectively proposes creating two electoral constituencies, rather than any kind of administrative entities. (Although it would have the interesting effect of creating a link between "constituents" and the presidency member they have elected.) More importantly, the actual composition of the two units could never realistically form the basis of three way division of Bosnia because the first unit, though containing the vast majority of Bosnia's Croats, has one overwhelmingly Bosniak canton, Una-Sana, and another, Central Bosnia, where power has been steadily shifting demographically and politically from the Croats to the Bosniaks. Any future Croat entity in Bosnia is unlikely to include these cantons.


Nevertheless, this agreement has once again raised the possibility of a new two-way division within the Federation that groups together existing cantons, albeit not the right ones to form the basis of the third entity that many Bosnian Croats dream of.

Rory, there is no deal as yet. HDZ (Covic) said that the negotiations are constructive, but that HDZ has a different model (one that uses the existing 10 cantons as electoral units). All other Muslim parties have come out against the deal, predictably scaremongering about the third entity etc. Tihic is defending the deal as being a good one for them by saying that the Muslims are a majority in both electoral regions (which is true).

Thanks. I made an amendment (to "containing the vast majority of Bosnia's Croats"). But still think it's very significant that the SDA agrees to a separation of the federation into two units for electoral purposes.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article ... -311433773

Bosnia Federation's New Constitution Before Parliament

The draft of a new constitution for the Bosniak-Croat Federation is to be discussed in a parliamentary commission, aiming to make the entity more functional and cheaper to run.

A draft proposal of the new Federation entity constitution is to be discussed on October 7 by an entity's parliament commission after an expert group suggested a more functional and less costly form of government.

One member of the expert group, initiated by the US embassy, Vahid Sehic, told Nezavisne daily that the draft had now been finalized and sent to the constitutional commission of the Federation parliament.

Sehic said that, following the parliamentary procedures, the goal was for the entity to get its new constitution by the end of the year.

“A new constitution is necessary because it would be impossible to amend the existing one,” Sehic said, adding that strong political support to this document was needed to change the entity's organization.

Contrary to media reports that the number of cantons would be cut from ten to less, the draft does not determine the number of cantons, "even though we believe a reduction should be considered”, Sehic said.

“We did not say in the constitution how many cantons there should be, as politics will decide that,” he added.

At the same time, the Federation parliament has to consider two other proposals, submitted by two parties, at Monday's committee session.

“As the draft of the new constitution goes before parliamentary procedure, other parties will have a chance to act if they want,” said Mahmut Alagic, of the constitutional committee.

Some parties have said they would support cutting the number of cantons, whose large administration is costly, but others oppose the idea, saying that the Federation should be abolished and the cantons left alone.

The expert group presented its recommendations for the Federation back in June and the entity's parliament initially accepted them, vowing to use them as basis for the reforms.

Most recommendations are designed to make the entity more functional and economically sustainable.

Among some 180 recommendations were that the entity's presidency should be abolished and the position of the speaker of parliament and the prime minister strengthened while the number of lawmakers in the assembly would be cut.

The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed in 1994 by Bosniaks [Muslims] and Croats as part of the Washington agreement, which ended an armed conflict between the two groups.

The Federation currently has its own presidency, government, parliament, courts, and ten cantons, which all have their own governments and ministries. There are also around 80 municipalities.

The Sejdic-Finci question

“STABLE but stagnant”, is how a diplomatic source sums up political life in Bosnia. This may be about to change. A press conference has been called for midday on October 10th in Brussels. It will reveal whether Bosnia’s leaders have finally, after almost four years of deadlock, made a crucial breakthrough that will enable their country to resume its stalled bid to join the European Union.

The press conference will follow a meeting that is a follow-up to one on October 1st when the leaders of Bosnia’s main political parties signed a document through which they committed themselves to tackling the Sejdic-Finci problem by October 10th. If the contentious question is not solved Bosnia will be subjected to penalties such as the loss of EU cash.

The Sejdic-Finci question relates to a 2009 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. The case was brought by Dervo Sejdic, a Roma activist, and Jakob Finci, who is Jewish. They argued that the Bosnian constitution, which was negotiated as part of the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian war in 1995, was discriminatory because certain electoral posts, for example on the tripartite presidency, can only be held by Serbs, Croats or Bosniak Muslims.

The court agreed with the arguments of the plaintiffs. Bosnia’s leaders agreed to fix the problem of how to accommodate “others.” But they have been unable to find a formula to do so since. The agreement on October 1st makes some progress in settling the problem but it does not provide an answer to its nub: Bosnian Croat politicians want to try and avoid a repetition of the current situation whereby the current Bosnian Croat member of the presidency was elected mostly thanks to Bosniak Muslim votes.

Bosnia’s bid to join the EU is stalling. Croatia joined in July, Montenegro is negotiating membership and Serbia and Kosovo, thanks to the mediation of Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs chief, have made huge progress in putting the wounds of the past, behind them.

Diplomatic sources are cautiously optimistic that the October 10th meeting could end with a breakthrough. If not, Bosnia will lose EU funding to the tune of £47m ($76m) for the rest of this year and a lot more for next year. The Council of Europe has also said it will not recognise the next Bosnian elections as legitimate if the old rules apply. EU officials have echoed this threat.

Štefan Füle (pictured), the EU’s enlargement commissioner, will assess whether Bosnian leaders are making what is referred to as a “credible” effort to resolve the issue. This will be noted in Bosnia’s annual EU “progress report” on October 16th. If the effort is deemed credible Bosnia will be allowed to apply for EU membership.

Bosnians stand to lose an opportunity. Next year elections for the European parliament will be held, which will lead to a new European Commission. In 2015 Bosnia will have elections. By then there will be little political will on either side to deal with this problem.

Preventing Bosnia from making an application for EU membership because of the Sejdic-Finci problem would be utterly wrong argues a new report from the European Stability Initiative (ESI), a think tank with a long and influential history in the Balkans. In the past (and even today) similar legislation existed in Belgium, in Italy in the South Tyrol region, and in Cyprus. It asks: why should Bosnia be penalised by hypocrites in the EU?

“The summit on 10 October in Brussels should be the last of its kind. The best case outcome would be that Bosnia’s leaders agree to a solution. However, if they do not, the EU should rethink its current policy and demand that Bosnia and Herzegovina implements this decision as part of wider constitutional reforms that it will undertake during the accession process itself. It should not be a precondition. Making it one was a mistake.”

Alida Vracic, head of a Sarajevo think-tank called Populari has written a response to Gerald Knaus, the head of ESI, called the “metastasis of nihilism”. Bosnians she says, think they are special, somehow complicated and exclusive. They are not interested in the outside world and new ideas but think that the solutions to their problems must come from outside. Their politicians agree with this but “the difference between them and us citizens” she says is that “they get paid for it”.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easterna ... /10/bosnia