Eurasia Press & News
The head of the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, says there is no need to reconstruct the government of the Federation entity following the collapse of the party’s coalition with the Social Democrats.Sulejman Tihic, leader of Party of Democratic Action, SDA, met Zivko Budimir, President of the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity, to discuss the announced reconstruction of the entity government following the fall of the SDA coalition with the Social Democrats.Tihic, leader of what is now likely to become an opposition Bosniak party, afterwards said that he saw no need to change ministers in the entity government if, as he said, it was functioning well.
He added that he was surprised that the SDP seemed bent on changing almost every tier of government in the country and leading the country into a fresh crisis.
“If there are demands to reconstruct the [Federation] government, dismissing the President and the Vice-President of the Federation will have to be done according to the Constitution of the Federation,” Tihic noted, after meeting Budimir.
He then referred to the new coalition between the SDP, the Alliance for a Better Future, SBB, and two sister Croatian parties, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ and HDZ 1990.
Federation President Budimir again said that the current coalition formed last March by the SDP, SDA, Croatian Party of Right, HSP and the People’s Party Work for Progress, NSRZB, was working well.
The SDP and HDZ leaders, Zlatko Lagumdzija and Dragan Covic, signed their formal coalition deal on June 17 and pledged to cooperate until the next general election in 2014. They said their first goal was to reconstruct the Federation government.
But for the new coalition deal to be implemented in the Federation, the SDA, HSP and NSRZB ministers must be dismissed by President Budimir.
The leader of SBB, Fahrudin Radoncic, who is also the owner of Bosnia’s most popular daily paper, Dnevni avaz, also met Budimir on Tuesday, and said that changes will have to come sooner or later.
“I felt free to remind the President of the Federation that he only got his post thanks to votes of SBB,” Radoncic told reporters.
“He first has to finish his consultations and then we will see if he signs [the ministers’ dismissals] or not,” he added.
The SDP-SDA coalition broke up after the SDA refused to support the adoption of the 2012 state budget.
Following this, Lagumdzija said the coalition with the SDA was over, and asked Bosnia’s state Prime Minister, Vjekoslav Bevanda, to dismiss the two SDA ministers and deputy minister from the state government.
In the state government, the SBB is now expected to take the Security Ministry and the position of deputy Finance Minister while the SDP will obtain the Defence Ministry, instead of the SDA.
