Before leaving BiH, Nelson gave an interview to the Bljesak.info news-portal in which he spoke about the political problems in our country. He emphasized that there was no talk of deleting the principle of constitutivity from the BiH Constitution.
He said that the parties failed to reconcile their positions and failed to reach an agreement this weekend in the Neum negotiations, but that they would have to continue searching for a solution.
“The task as such remains. For me, the optimism we expressed about the talks was justified because progress has been made. Talks were held and the participation of other parties such as HDZ 1990, NES, NiP, SBB, showed that there is a broader coalition of parties that believes that this problem really exists and that it should be solved. All participants really tried to present their ideas at the table. However, they failed to reach an agreement on the models approved by the Venice Commission. The HDZ proposals were approved by the Venice Commission, but the models they proposed, unfortunately, did not meet the standards,“ Nelson told Bljesak.info.
He emphasized that „it is clear that the role of the constituent peoples in BiH is extremely important“.
„The challenge for BiH is, first of all, to meet the standards it has adopted regarding the European Convention on Human Rights. The challenge posed to BiH by European courts is to remove discriminatory provisions from the Constitution regarding the election of members of the Presidency and delegates to the House of Peoples. The text of the Constitution was one of the key topics and focus of the talks. Everyone agreed that the Constitution must be inclusive and it must clearly include a text that would say that representatives of the three constituent peoples, others and all citizens must have the right to vote and to be elected. The legitimate importance of this feeling is that all voters can participate and that the vote of every voter is important. And for every vote to be important and to count, first of all it requires a greater degree of electoral process integrity. Finding a new electoral model that would allow for greater geographical diversity so that all parts of this country would feel their voice heard - I think it's worth taking into consideration,“ he said.
Nelson, on the other hand, made an astonishing claim that there were certain „democratic models that the Venice Commission would support that would enable, for example, Herzegovina to be more represented in the Presidency, and that is a geographical determinant and not an ethnic one.“ This is a completely unbelievable statement that literally nobody ever made until Mr. Nelson's interview. Nobody has ever asked for Herzegovina to have its own member of the Presidency.
„But at the same time, it is clear that the United States and the EU will not and cannot support any model that would work towards a greater division of the country. And that is why one constituency is very important,“ he said.
He also commented on the possibility of a Croatian boycott of this year's elections if the current status quo is maintained.
„Failure to agree on these changes does not give anyone the right to deny the existing rules. And I hope that this year's voters will go to the polls and choose and make a decision based on real issues or the success of their leaders to solve real problems. I cannot imagine many other things that would be more undemocratic and more destabilizing than creating barriers to free elections. Our view is that opposing improvement the integrity of the electoral process would be the same as defending corruption in the electoral system,“ Nelson said.
Answering the question about the threat of unitarism to the BiH stability, the American ambassador states that „there was absolutely no mention and talk about the removal of the three constituent peoples from the Constitution“.
„There is no discussion about changing the role of the Presidency or protecting vital national interests. In the Federation, the protection of vital national interests is in the hands of the Croat or Bosniak Caucus in the House of Peoples at the state level. There is a way to ensure that all citizens are treated equally and that the power-sharing between the three constituent peoples continues in a good, positive way,“ he said.
Dnevnik.ba