| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
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Following the election on 3 October, 2010, a process of formation of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Council of Ministers had begun. The resulting election has produced a fragmented political landscape without a coalition of a parliamentary majority more than a year after the election. The centralist Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the largest party in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb autonomist Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, the largest party in the Republika Srpska, each have 8 MPs of the total 42 MPs of the House of Representatives (28 from FB&H and 14 from RS). Similarly, a crisis of government is also present the the local levels, as well as the Federal entity.
Bosnia broke the record time to form a government that had been held by in Iraq following its election; however a similar government formation crisis in Belgium lasted 541 days.
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In 2009, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the ineligibility of minorities other than the country's three constitutional peoples to run for the House of Peoples or the Presidency was discriminatory. Parties have failed to agree on how to change the current electoral system.[1]
Bosnia and Herzegovina has not held an official national census since 1991 while still a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and prior to the Bosnian War. Holding a census is a condition for the country's EU membership.[2]
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina had a similar crisis, until the Bosniak coalition had unilaterally formed a government without the Croat majority. Despite being illegal, the government was officially recognised by the OHR, which has led to the Croats establishing parallel institutions of Herzeg-Bosnia.
The major Croat (HDZ and HDZ 1990) and Serb parties (SNSD and SDS) contend that a gentlemen's agreement exists in which the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers rotates between the three constitutional nationalities. In this case, it would be the turn for a Croat politician to chair the council. As the Croatian Democratic Union and the Croatian Democratic Union 1990 received the overwhelming share of Croat votes in the 2010 elections, the parties have demanded that a member of one of the parties receive the position of chairman. SDP on the other hand, claims that the only necessity is the ethnicity of the individual, and not the party, demanding the right to appoint a Croat PM from the SDP ranks, calling upon the right of having assumed most votes nation-wide.
The government of Bosnia and Herzegovina must agree as to how funds available through the EU's Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance will be divided between the national government, the Federation, and Republika Srpska.[3]
The European Union and the Office of the High Representative have repeatedly attempted negotiations to appease the Bosniac-Bosnian and Serb-Croat divided political blocs, in parallel to the Bosnian constitutional crisis, all ending in failure. The peaks of the crisis were the moves of the Serb entity to schedule a referendum against the OHR, which were left later on. The Bosniac-Bosnian coalition insists that the seat will have to go to them as the party that received the largest number of votes, while the Serbian-Croatian alliance insists that due to the fact that according to tradition the next Prime Minister must be an ethnic Croat, it must come from an authentic Croat party (Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and not the non-national SDP.
Slavko Kukić, a Croat member of the Social Democratic Party, was nominated for chairman in July by the country's presidency. Croat and Serb parties subsequently voted against the nomination. Although he received a majority of votes in the House of Representatives, he failed to receive the necessary 2/3 majority of votes from the Republika Srpska representatives.
On 1 September, 2011 Peter Sørensen was appointed European Union Special Representative, replacing Valentin Inzko.
A round of talks between party leaders was held in Mostar on September 5 hosted by Croat politicians Božo Ljubić and Dragan Čović, with Milorad Dodik, Mladen Bosić, Sulejman Tihić and Zlatko Lagumdžija in attendance. The parties agreed to a further round of discussion in mid-September.[4]
A meeting between the six major party leaders was held in Sarajevo on September 15, hosted by Zlatko Lagumdžija.[5] Topics discussed at the meeting included holding a national census, military assets, and the Sejdić-Finci ruling. On the same day, an EU spokesperson warned that the country risked losing funding through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance if the political situation did not stabilize.[6] Another meeting on 26 September 2011 failed, as well.[7]
An agreement was finally reached on 28 December 2011. The PM will be Vjekoslav Bevanda, a Bosnian Croat.[8][9]