Bosnia: very few chances for Slavo Kukic to be appointed Prime Minister

Slavo Kukic, Bosnia’s Prime Ministerial nominee, has completed consultations with parliamentary parties, but without meeting the leaders of the strongest Serb and Croat parties, his candidacy appears doomed.

Slavo Kukic, a candidate for the Chairman of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers, ended his visit to Banja Luka, de facto capital of Bosnia’s predominantly Serb entity Republika Srpska, RS, without meeting officials of the strongest Serbian party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD.

Kukic has been put forward for the job of Prime Minister by the multi-ethnic, but mainly Bosniak Social Democratic Party-led coalition, which also gathers the mainly Bosniak Party for Democratic Action, SDA, and two minor Croat parties, Croatian Party of Rights, HSP, and People’s Prosperity Through Work Party, NSRB.

The president of the Bosnian Serb assembly, and a member of the SNSD, Igor Radojicic, said meeting with Kukic would be “a waste of time”, as his party has refused to even talk to the candidate proposed by the SDP. It will only support a “legitimate” Croat representative, meaning a member of one of the main Bosnian Croat parties.

Two leading Croat parties, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and HDZ 1990, earlier also refused to talk to Kukic, maintaining that the only legitimate representative of the Bosnian Croat electoral will is their candidate, Borjana Kristo.

“The problems in forming a new Council of Ministers won’t be solved by proposing Kukic,” Igor Radojicic said.

The next session of Bosnia’s state parliament – at which delegates will vote for or against the proposed candidate – is still on hold, although it was scheduled for last Friday, and then postponed for seven days after Kukic requested additional time for consultations.

So far, Kukic has failed even to gain support from smaller Serb parties, such as the Democratic Progress party, PDP, which didn’t refuse to meet Kukic, but whose officials stressed that the PDP will neither support nor vote against Kukic.

Members of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, talked to Kukic in Sarajevo on Wednesday, but they also refused to support him.