prijava
SARAJEVO, July 4 (FENA) - The US envoy for the Western Balkans Matthew Palmer and the Executive Director for Western Europe, the Western Balkans, Turkey and the United Kingdom at the European External Action Service (EEAS) Angelina Eichhorst met today with the opposition parties' leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Presidents of the SDP BiH Nermin Nikšić, the Serb Democratic Party Mirko Šarović, the SBB Fahrudin Radončić, the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) Branislav Borenović, President of the Main Board of Our Party Sabina Ćudić, and President of the People and Justice Party Elmedin Konaković, rated a meeting with Palmer and Eichhorst as very good and constructive.
In a statement for the media, they said that the opposition presented its views on the changes to the BiH Election Law, and the possible solutions offered by the April package, File's model and asymmetric elections in the BiH Election Law. For some opposition leaders, these solutions are acceptable, for others they are not.
In that sense, Nikšić said that the SDP BiH is ready for both solutions, the April package and File's model, but an asymmetric solution is unacceptable for him. He pointed out that he wants fair and transparent elections, because, as he said, every time the elections took place in the past, those who counted the votes had the last word and not the voters.
For the SDS leader Mirko Šarović, the asymmetric model has the best chance of success. They agreed, he says, that regardless of any kind of election of a member of the Presidency of BiH, if we do not have changes to the Election Law of BiH that would be transparent, introduce some innovations, then it would be a futile job, because, concluded Šarović, we see that the elections are being ruthlessly robbed every time and that those who do it are now creating new solutions for the implementation of the Sejdić-Finci judgment.
The SBB leader Fahrudin Radončić believes that it is wrong for the HDZ and the SDA, which have tied the flags since the 1990s, now try to shift the responsibility for changes or amendments to the BiH Election Law to the opposition.
He said that the good news is that Washington and Brussels are very willing to help Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He pointed out that the opposition is here today as well-meaning assistants who want to use this timing and that BiH gets a fair Election Law in terms of interethnic relations and, which is very important, that these elections be fair and transparent.
He emphasized that the opposition today showed a high level of tolerance and inventiveness for BiH to get a fairer Election Law, but, according to him, the SBB cannot vote on anything until it sees it as a proposed solution, and "there are no solutions without the opposition, meaning that we will not be voting for anything that goes."
For the PDP leader Branislav Borenović, the key issue that can solve all the problems in BiH is the introduction of optical scanning of ballots, and this can be achieved if there is enough political will.
According to him, all those who are against the scanning of ballots and those essential changes of the Election Law "in essence, they want to preserve a way of deciding the fate of this country through theft and hijacking of institutions, through corruption in the election process that directly leads to widespread, systemic corruption."
He assessed that today, the opposition has shown maturity and readiness to change the election legislation in a way to have really fair and democratic elections "and we are ready to participate in that."
He also said that his position and the position of Šarović are clear, for them the asymmetric model is acceptable, that a member of the Presidency from the RS is elected directly and the other two indirectly through the FBiH Parliament or the BiH Parliament.
There is no concrete proposal, and Borenović says that those who believe that the ruling coalition will provide a certain solution are greatly mistaken.
He believes that the HDZ, the SDA and the SNSD want this non-election year to pass as soon as possible so that, as he said, they have an argument in their hands and that is that it is impossible to change the BH Election Law in an election year.
The president of the Our Party Main Board, Sabina Čudić said the amount of political immaturity, demonstrated today by Izetbegović and Čović, by shifting the responsibility to the opposition, was shocking.
Although the opposition from both the RS and the Federation of BiH will be very happy to take responsibility, but as she said, the proposals they plan to lay out will not be to Izetbegović's liking.
Our party, she concluded, does not accept any solutions that further complicate the system and further ruin the possibility of an agreement in unblocking the processes in BiH, but surely, "those solutions that we put on the table will not sit well with Čović primarily, or with Izetbegović."
Two key things are important, explained the NIP President (People and Justice Party) Elmedin Konaković. One is that an option where anyone can block the system in the country must not be allowed at any cost, "in such a way that tomorrow, like in the case with the FBiH Government, we have a legislative body that functions for several years in the technical mandate after the elections."
Secondly, he said, it is time for the international community to do something, to be more specific towards the citizens of BiH, "to give us something we may not have deserved, and in some negotiations, our political elites should have asked for it from the representatives of the international community."
Konaković also said that he has almost no information about what an asymmetric solution would mean and that when they receive all the documents, they will take a position on each individual detail.
The US Envoy for the Western Balkans Matthew Palmer and Executive Director for Western Europe, Western Balkans, Turkey and the United Kingdom to the European External Action Service (EEAS) Angelina Eichhorst will continue talks with political leaders in BiH, aimed at helping Bosnia and Herzegovina on the road to the EU, on Monday.
(FENA) S. R.
