KOVAČEVIĆ: SNSD FIGHTS AGAINST OTHERS DECIDING ON BEHALF OF SERBS OR CROATS

SARAJEVO, MAY 29 /SRNA/ - The SNSD is fighting against the idea that other people, no matter how good they are, decide who will represent Serbs or Croats in power, and it insists on that, said today Radovan Kovačević, member of the Serb people’s Caucus in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH.

Responding to MP Želimir Nešković, who said that other people do not want the SNSD to be part of the government, Kovačević said that this reminded him of the song “Parole, parole, parole" /Words, words, words/ which the opposition rewrote as “power, power, power.” "You are fighting only for that, without the support of the people, and that can be problematic, so I would ask you to give up," Kovačević said and added that the assemblies decide who holds power, and that the Republika Srpska National Assembly decided that the SNSD is the majority. Responding to Nešković’s remark that the SNSD had an agreement for power at the BiH level but no longer does, Kovačević said that the opposition in Republika Srpska has an agreement with the "troika," and that these two "troikas," from Republika Srpska and the Federation of BiH, have a fitting name because together they hold three out of 15 seats in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH. “If that is the majority, then we have a serious problem with math. Another issue is that you have a united Bosniak front, and you have joined it to do just one thing: to remove the person whom the Serbs have elected to hold power. That is something we have a problem with,” emphasized Kovačević. He called on the opposition in Republika Srpska to sign an agreement that would give them a consistent parliamentary majority in both Houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH. Kovačević also stated that the Speaker of the House of Peoples, Nikola Špirić, is not in this position because he wanted it, but because the Serb Caucus elected him to the House of Peoples’ Collegium. “What 100 people say is shown in the elections,” Kovačević said in response to MP Nenad Vuković’s statement that in every city in Republika Srpska, 97 out of 100 people would say that Špirić should be removed from the House of Peoples’ Collegium. According to him, in the last elections, 65 out of 100 people said that Špirić should remain in his position, while only five said it should be someone from the opposition. He also reminded that the Government of Republika Srpska is formed in the same way as in Serbia, Croatia, and other countries, whereas in BiH, the situation is different because there is no government, but rather the Council of Ministers, which is formed based on the legitimacy granted by representatives of the peoples. “And for that reason, I say that we were not elected by Bosniaks and Croats, but by the majority will of the Serb people, and that is a big difference,” he emphasized, adding that if the opposition has a majority in the Republika Srpska National Assembly, it can form the government. According to him, it has been clear in elections for 20 years whom the citizens of Republika Srpska support. The opposition can be anything it wants in the name of Republika Srpska, but it cannot be the government.