News Analysis: BiH entity starts complex process to form gov't

The parliament of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) on Monday elected Croat Marinko Cavara as the president, thus beginning the complex procedure to form a government.

Although Cavara said that the government "will be formed in next ten days", important issues between three major parties remains unsolved, which could lead to a further delay of forming the new government.

BiH has two entities, Republika of Srpska (RS) and FBiH. On entity level, there is most competences, more than on the state level. More competences also mean bigger budgets. Together, budgets of FBiH and the RS equal two and a half that of state BiH.

Although on state level government there are some important departments such as foreign affairs, security or defense, political parties always focus their fight over positions for entity governments.

FBiH is constituted from 10 cantons, five with Bosniak majority, three with Croats majority while the other two cantons are without any dominant ethnic majority.

Complex constitutional structure of FBiH reflexes on legislative and executive bodies. Ethnic groups of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks often use ethnic veto on many decisions, including those like adopting the laws or even forming the government.

Ruling parties have control over important projects, income and expenditure of budget, as well as public companies, policy of employment in public sector etc.. For the political elites, there is high interest to be part of ruling majority.

FBiH has one prime minister and 16 ministries, among them important posts in finance, energy, transport, agriculture, police, etc.

Constitutional regulation provides that eight ministers should be Bosniak ethnicity, five Croats and three Serbs. It is similar regulation as in the RS and BiH state government with different quotas.

Under unwritten rules in all former governments, prime minister of FBiH was Bosniak and finance minister was Croat. Yet, for now, a crucial problem lies in the fact three major parties are demanding more positions more than the government could provide.

The Party of Democratic Action (SDA), a center-right Bosniak party who won the general election last year, claims all Bosniak positions should belong to this party, including those of prime minister and seven ministers.

On the other hand, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), a Center-Right Croat party, wants all ministries from Croats quota plus one from the Serb quota.

Then, the Democratic Front (DF), a multi-ethnic center-left party, claims it won more votes in general elections than HDZ and it should have more or equal ministerial positions. That means all three Serb ministers plus two from other ethnic quotas, including the possibility to appoint somebody from ethnic minority.

Thus, there are at least two more positions no where to find. With the calculation of positions of managing directors of profitable public companies, like the ones in energy and telecommunication sectors, situation gets even more complicated.

Beginning on Tuesday, SDA, DF and HDZ will kick off negotiation on allocation of ministerial and other positions.

The incredibly complex "Bosnian pot", as some people joking about the governance structures in BiH, often results in low efficiency. Endit