PARTY OF DEMOCRATIC ACTION AMENDS B&H CONSTITUTION

PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT FROM THE SAME PARTY?

AIM, Sarajevo, June 21, 1995 At first, the news did not seem to be of a first-class political significance. The initiative of deputies of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) - which was, just imagine, initiated by the President of the Party, but also the President of the Presidency, Alija Izetbegovic himself - consists of an amendment of the Constitution according to which the President of the Presidency would be elected by deputies in the Assembly.

According to the Constitution in force now, the President is elected at a session of the Presidency and among members of the collective head of the state. Members of the Presidency elected the first of the equal ones from among themselves. The ruling SDA, however, proposes that the Parliament should decide about this, offering the accompanying explanation of its initiative: the Assembly, it says, is the highest decision-making body elected by the people, so if its deputies should be the ones to elect the president it would be a higher level of democracy than when it is done by the small body counting only seven members. The formulated proposal for amending the Constitution prescibes in a separate article introduction of the office of a vice-president of the Presidency which until now (regardless of how Ejup Ganic presented himself) did not exist. According to the initiative of the SDA, the Vice-President would also be elected among the members of the Presidency but in an assembly procedure. The vice-president is expected to replace the president in case he is absent or prevented to perform his duty, to represent him in duties the President bestows on him, but also automatically becomes the president of the Presidency, in case the former president permanently ceases to be that for any reason.

The initiative of the SDA, has, of course, already been turned into a Draft Constitutional Law on Amendments and Supplements of the Constitution of B&H and deputies will vote on it at the very next session of the republican Assembly. Without any doubts about the outcome, it should be expected that the new (former) president of the Presidency will be elected at the same session.

Although wrapped up in a democratic wrapper about the "Assembly as the highest law-making and democratic body", the explanation the SDA has given for the latest initiative for amending the Constitution - is naive and unconvincing. Is there anyone who still does not know that apart from the few and far between oppositionists, the republican Assembly is composed of deputies of the Party of Democratic Action? Since war conflicts broke out, there are no deputies of the Serb Democratic Party (as one of the three ruling parties in the parliament), deputies of the Croat Democratic Community do not participate in its work because they recognize the Federation only and its parliament, but not the Republic B&H, so that the SDA has an enormous majority in the present parliament. In such a situation, the outcome of any voting is known in advance. Therefore, despite explanations about "more democracy", in this case it is just the matter of additional consolidation of the party and a wish for an even firmer establishment of the already dominant power of the SDA. Some leaders within the ruling party do not even try to hide this, justifyng their stance with the state of war in Bosnia & Herzegovina, as well as with allegations that in such a situation, "Boshniaks-Muslims must be at the head of the state". Since this is not the matter of a Boshniak, but Boshniaks at the head of the state, and since the leadership of Alija Izetbegovic is not questionable at all, it is clear that the additional demand for amending the Constitution refers to legalization of the already few-years long presentation of Ejup Ganic as vice-president of the Presidency, but also reinforcement of his political position. This also verifies the stories which the public in Sarajevo has been listening to for some time, that both the party and the political rating of Ejup Ganic are rising on account of the former favourite, Prime Minister Harsi Silajdzic, who has obviously never been forgiven by the party for repeated polemics and conflicts.

The Draft Amendment of the Constitution will be on the agenda of the next session of the Assembly and, all things considered, it will be adopted. In other words, deputies of the SDA will elect the future President, but his Vice-President too, who will, they say, automatically replace him. What the institution of Presidency will be like in the future is perhaps best illustrated by the views of the public

• some claim that nothing will change because that is exactly how the Presidency has already been operating for quite some time and the composition of its membership will remain the same, while the others believe that this is legalization of concentration of power in the hands of the president and the vice-president, while the remaining members will just play the role of formal decoration. (decor, setting.

So far in the work of the Presidency, speaking in Orwellian terms, they were all "equal", just a few of them were much "more equal". But, despite all this, the collective head of the state which consisted of seven members, with - equally - the Muslims, the Serbs and the Croats in it, represented before the domestic and the world public the multi-cultural Bosnia & Herzegovina, that is, a country as a democratic community of equal nations. Numerous expressions of support of the world were offered to Bosnia on that ground alone. Transferring the elections of the President into the Assembly and introducing the office of the vice-president in the body called the "collective head of the state", obviously stifles the main characteristic of this collective institution. Elected by the Assembly, the president and the vice-president would have the obligation to report about their work to those who elected them - their deputies, and not the remaining members of the Presidency - which paves the road to further unequality of the remaining members of the "collective head of the state", or to a gradual transition to the presidential state system.

Of course, something much more dangerous is hidden behind the constitutional legal stratagems about the position of the president, possible vice-president and other members of the Presidency - the issue of equality of nations. Concentration of power in the hands of members of a single nation, especially from a single exclusive national party of that nation, is certainly no road to creation of Bosnia & Herzegovina as a community based on equality of the Boshniaks, the Serbs and the Croats. Without all three nations, there is no complete Bosnia & Herzegovina. This means that with the offered conception, the ruling SDA leads the way to a gradual creation of a Boshniak-Muslim state. In fact, in justifying that nothing of the kind is even dreamed-of inside the ruling structure, a clear state objective should have been determined in time, and with a specific activity, all doubts about creation of a national state should have been rejected.

As a rule, during a state of war in democratic countries, no constitutional amendments are allowed. Since the war is no time for anything of the kind, amendments of the Constitution in Bosnia & Hezregovina should be postponed, and certain much more urgent matters taken care of. Even if the proposed amendments of the Constitution were appropriate and necessary for the Bosnian being, which is certainly not the case with the mentioned initiative. But, disregarding all arguments which speak against their initiative, representatives of the ruling SDA sent their Draft on the Amendments of the Constitution to the address of the republican Assembly, so that we will not have to wait long for the epilogue. The Prime Minister's doubt uttered quite a long time ago seems to be coming true: there is more struggle for power here than there is struggle for Bosnia & Herzegovina.

MLADEN PAUNOVIC