After the 2018 election, no government can be formed in Bosnia-Herzegovina for years. The reason for this is blockades by the Croatian nationalist HDZ party. After the most recent ballot, the High Representative of the UN wants to prevent this by decree.
After the elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the country’s international representative, the German Christian Schmidt, intervened in the constitutional and electoral regulations of the Bosnian-Croatian part of the country. By decree, he changed the way the next Government of the Federation of BiH (FBiH) would be formed. “The measures serve to break down blockades,” he said in Sarajevo.
No government could be formed in that part of the country after the 2018 elections because the Croatian nationalist HDZ party blocked the formation of a government. She called for changes to the electoral law in her favour. “In a federal state there has been no government for four years – that defies every European description,” said Schmidt. The package of measures now sets precise deadlines for politicians to be nominated for top positions.
At the same time, Schmidt also increased the number of deputies in the indirectly elected second chamber of the federal parliament, the House of Nations. According to critics, however, the Croatian HDZ of all people prefers this – with effects on the composition of other state bodies of the federation and the state as a whole. Schmidt rejected this. “That’s complete nonsense,” he said. The HDZ is “not evaluated differently than other nationalist parties in this country”.
The CSU politician issued the regulations immediately after the polling stations closed on Sunday evening. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, praesidia and parliaments were elected for the state as a whole and for both parts of the country, the FBiH and the Serbian Republic (RS). According to the election commission, the respective national parties of the Muslim Bosnians, Serbs and Croats were able to largely hold their positions of power.
Schmidt, a former German agriculture minister, has held the post of High Representative for just over a year. It was created after the end of the Bosnian war in 1995. The representative is supposed to monitor compliance with the peace treaty and can also enact and repeal laws and remove Bosnian officials.
