Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman on Friday called on Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina to vote en masse in upcoming general elections in order to preserve their role as an equal and constituent people.

Speaking in Orasje, Bosnia, he said that was “the only way we will succeed in defending our constitutionally guaranteed rights as a constituent people.”

The minister said it would be a historical paradox if the Croatian people, whose soldiers had been crucial for Bosnia “to even exist as a sovereign state, let others decide about their fate.”

“Any solution that isn’t supported by the legitimate representatives of the Croatian people within the Croatian National Assembly of Bosnia (HNS BiH) will no longer be agreed to,” he added.

The elections will be held on 2 October even though the election law has not been changed, so the four times more numerous Bosniaks could again outvote the Croats in electing the Croat member of the Bosnian Presidency and members of the Federation entity parliament’s upper house. The Bosniaks could thus oust the Croat parties for which the largest number of the Croats vote.

Borjana Kristo, a candidate for the Croat member of the BiH Presidency, said that because Croats in BiH would vote under unchanged election rules, the HNS BiH decided to nominate one candidate “to send a message to all those political groups which, under the civic guise, see the future in a different way. The Croatian people should decide by majority vote who will represent it.”

Grlic-Radman, Croatian Agriculture Minister Marija Vuckovic, Croatian Defence Minister Mario Banozic, and HNS BiH officials attended the opening of a museum at the Franciscan monastery in Tolisa near Orasje.