Bosniaks, Croats Unite For Bosnian Serb Election

A coalition of non-Serbian parties, "Together for Bosnia", which gathers nine Bosnian Croat and Bosniak parties, will contest the October general elections in Republika Srpska together, representing what they describe as a pro-Bosnian platform.

They intend to "fight against discrimination and fight for the rights of Bosniaks and Croats in this entity, and we call on other political subjects with similar interest to improve our strength in the [entity] assembly," a press release issued last week said.

The bloc aims to protect the rights of returnees to Republika Srpska, Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, including their language rights.

The parties taking part in the joint bloc are the Party for Bosnia, the Croatian Democratic Union 1990, HDZ 1990, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, the Croatian bloc in Bosnia, the Answer Movement, the Bosniak Movement, the Party of Posavina and the Bosnian Herzegovina Party.

The SDA, as the country's main Bosniak party, is likely to be the hub of the coalition. The others are much smaller parties.

Ivana Maric, a Sarajevo-based political analyst told BIRN, said it was hard to estimate the coalition's potential, "as it is still unknown who the candidates will be".

The Social Democratic Party in Republika Srpska is also working on plan to form another coalition of left-oriented parties, with the Democratic Front, the People's Alliance, Our Party and other parties, she noted.

"If they form a coalition, that will divide their voters [in the RS]. What we do know for now is that there is no possibility that they all go under one coalition so, in the end, there will be at least three coalitions in Republika Srpska," Maric explained. 

At the moment, the "Homeland" coalition in the assembly of...