prijava
SARAJEVO, February 2 (FENA) - President of the Croat People's Assembly (HNS) BiH Dragan Čović has sent a letter to international mediators in the electoral reform negotiations, Matthew Palmer and Angelina Eichhorst.
The letter follows below in its entirety:
I wish to thank you for the invested efforts in the past year and a half in finding a solution that would fully implement the political agreements from Mostar, signed on 17 June 2020. The devotion and expertise from your end were of significant importance for the process that ended with the negotiations in Neum at the end of January 2022.
I will remind that we, thanks to sustained efforts, successfully implemented the agreement that pertains to the City of Mostar not long after the signing. As a result, after twelve long years, democratic elections for the City Council of the City of Mostar were held. Rightfully so, this awoke the optimism that was indispensable for resolving open issues in the relations between Bosniacs and Croats.
On the other hand, the agreement that pertains to the legitimate election and legitimate political representation of constituent peoples and citizens on all administrative-political levels, in the Presidency of BiH and the Houses of Peoples, and to ensure active and passive suffrage of every citizen on the entire territory of BiH, despite the effort of the Croatian National Assembly (HNS BiH), remains unfulfilled.
In cooperation with you, we held hundreds of hours of negotiations on limited changes of the Constitution of BiH and the electoral legislation to implement decisions of the European Court for Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of BiH, including the U-23/14 Decision, and to implement relevant recommendations of OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission in line with European standards. Maximum efforts were put in from our side, dozens of documents were put forth, including proposals of changes of the Constitution of BiH and electoral models with which decisions of courts would be implemented and legitimate representatives in the Presidency and the Houses of Peoples would be elected.
It is precisely due to the selfless efforts of representatives of the EU, United States and the Venice Commission that we managed to achieve coherence of our proposals of constitutional provisions with the highest European standards and recommendations of the Venice Commission, including the matter of formulating the constitutional language in relation to the Presidency of BiH. With our proposal, we ensured that all citizens of BiH can elect and be elected regardless of affiliation and without expression of national or ethnic identity.
The very careful designing of our proposals for a limited constitutional reform, as well as other models, was led by the principle of satisfying the constitutionally guaranteed rights of equality of the three constituent peoples and the highest standards of human rights.
I believe that you will agree that the Croatian negotiating side led by HNS BiH left space for compromise solutions. Despite the fact that the decisions of courts do not pertain to the topic that is, somewhat tendentious, called „the functionality of the Federation of BiH“, we demonstrated exceptional flexibility and openness for accepting negotiations on that topic as well.
Despite all this, we hold that our efforts and agreements were gruesomely violated on part of the co-signatory of the Mostar Agreement, especially knowing that the implementation of the Agreement on principles of changes and amendments of the Election Law of BiH was supposed to be completed by adopting legal changes in the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH by the end of 2021 at the latest. We feared such a scenario until the very end, given that mistrust and the political crisis are, with this, further deepened.
Therefore, we currently find ourselves in a situation for which we hold that formal and legal conditions for the holding of General Elections in October of 2022 have not yet been ensured.
I will remind that Bosniacs and Croats, as constituent peoples (along with Others), signed the 1994 Washington Agreement, which established the Federation of BiH. The Washington Accords and the Dayton Peace Accords guarantee Croats sovereign national rights. It is a fact that the sovereign rights and constitutivity of Croats have been grossly violated over the course of the last two decades, both in terms of reflecting the constitutivity of Croats in all joint institutions and the legitimate election of their representatives.
Recent negotiations and the persistent undermining of our unequivocal commitment to finding a solution have demonstrated that the co-signatory of the Mostar Agreement is, along with other Bosniac political representatives, committed to continuing gross violations of international agreements and Croats' sovereign rights as an equal constituent people in BiH. Such gross violation of the rights of a constituent people and of international law, should it continue, shall have far-reaching consequences in relations between Croats and Bosniacs.
Therefore, it is our duty to enhance electoral standards in our country, but also to preserve the key norms of signed international agreements that guarantee the equality of all constituent peoples, especially the least numerous Croatian people, in order to avoid further destabilization and to ensure the path towards Euro-Atlantic integrations.
Despite the reduction of optimism on our part as well as the time constraint, we are ready to complete the negotiating process that was commenced. Gross violations of human rights and the domination of one constituent people over another are impermissible. As political leaders, we must not give up or stray away from higher objectives of electoral reform and limited changes to the Constitution of BiH. The implementation of the Mostar Agreement is of vital interest for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Lastly, persistent dialogue and compromise are the only way to build the, unfortunately already deeply hindered, trust and reconciliation, which will allow us to turn a new page in favor of our country's Euro-Atlantic future. Once again, I express gratitude for your commitment and support which you provide to Bosnia and Herzegovina, all its peoples and citizens on the Euro-Atlantic path that, with all difficulties and challenges, remains our only perspective.
(FENA) S. R.
