Key Muslim politicians in BiH reconcile

27/03/2008

To the relief of Bosniaks and the international community, the chiefs of the two major Bosniak parties -- the SDA's Sulejman Tihic and the SBiH's Haris Silajdzic -- reconciled after several months of political bickering.

By Jusuf Ramadanovic for Southeast European Times in Sarajevo – 27/03/08

Sulejman Tihic (left) and Haris Silajdzic have often clashed. [File]

Two key Bosniak leaders have reconciled after months of quarrelling, the Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz reported on March 14th. The rapprochement could Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) move forward with police reform, a key requirement set by the EU.

The newspaper said it has confirmed that the chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) rotating presidency and leader of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina, (SBiH), Haris Silajdzic, had met with his coalition partner, the former chairman of the rotating presidency and current leader of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), Sulejman Tihic. The paper did not say when the meeting took place.

High Representative Miroslav Lajcak had previously criticised the Bosniak politicians for their public bickering, which he described as "immature". Media in the country have also reported that Bosniaks increasingly see the two as placing their own egos above the interests of the Bosniak community, not to mention BiH as a whole.

According to Dnevni Avaz, the two men agreed that dialogue and trust must be established between the two major Bosniak parties. On March 10th, the paper said, they met with an opposition Bosniak leader, Social Democratic Party (SDP) head Zlatko Lagumdzija, to discuss various issues.

Lagumdzija is said to have insisted that all future energy construction projects should be treated at the state level rather than the party level. He also pointed out that the same state-level project status should be applied to the privatisation of two state-owned telecoms and the building of a highway section of the Vc Corridor.

For their part, Tihic and Silajdzic supported in principle the adoption of the law on seizing illegally acquired property, which has officially been sent to the parliament by the SDP for the fourth time.

However, what most raises hopes among the Bosniak political community is that it now seems probably that Bosniak politicians will take a unified stance on police and constitutional reforms.

The EU has conditioned further progress towards accession on overhauling the country's labyrinthine police system. Brussels says the current setup is inefficient and allows criminals and traffickers to get away simply by crossing entity lines. Opportunities to sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU have been repeatedly put off because of the issue.