Rights of the Croat people are being taken away from them in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the Archbishop of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cardinal Vinko Puljic commenting the recent general election in the country, adding that even the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler came to power through legal election.

“In 1945, the law took away our property and destroyed everything that was Croat and intelligent. We were persecuted in line with the law, just like Hitler came to power in line with the law.,” the Cardinal said at a mass in Zepce, central Bosnia, marking the 560th anniversary of the first mention of the municipality. “The question is, what is this law that takes away a people’s rights and wants to erase any trace of its existence, as it is done to Bosnian Croats.”

The Cardinal’s statements came after the recent general election in the country when the centre-left candidate Zeljko Komsic defeated his opponent from the Croat nationalist party the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), Dragan Covic, for the position of the new Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency.

Namely, all the Croat nationalist parties in the country contest Zeljko Komsic’s election, saying he was not elected by the Croat people, therefore his election is illegitimate. However, according to the state Election Law and the Constitution, Zeljko Komsic’s election was legal and constitutional.

Additionally, Bosnia’s Constitution, which is the Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia, stipulates that the Presidency will consist of three members, each coming from one of the three constituent peoples in the country, a Bosniak, a Croat and a Serb member.

The constitution never mentions that Presidency members must be elected exclusively by members of each people, but only adds that the Serb member is elected by voters from the Serb dominated, Republika Srpska (RS) entity and that Bosniak and Croat members are elected by voters from the Bosniak and Croat dominated Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity.

Cardinal Puljic added that Croats and the Catholic church could not be destroyed during the time of the Ottoman rule or during the communist regime in the country “and they won’t be destroyed today, in a time of dirty political games and party disputes in Bosnia.”

“No one people will be happy if they destroy another, which is exactly what is happening in Bosnia. We must amend many things, but our Catholic faith is our path for the future of the Croat people in the country,” Puljic concluded.  

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