Zeljko Komsic

Bosniak politicians in Bosnia have savaged Croatia for starting work on a controversial bridge in Dalmatia, calling the beginning of its construction on Monday an assault on Bosnia's sovereignty and territorial integrity and an act contrary to international law. 

After Dragan Covic, the Croat member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency, announced that Bosnia's Croatian-majority cantons will open a joint representative office in Brussels, critics called the move a step towards the destabilisation, and even the collapse, of the Bosnian state.

Politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina have already started announcing who will run for posts on the country's three-member presidency in elections not due until October.

They have done so despite the risk that the elections might be postponed, owing to problems with reform of the electoral process.

Western diplomats criticized the government of Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated entity of Bosnia, after it suspended cooperation with the country's main court, prosecution and state police on Thursday.

The head of the Privatization Agency in Bosnia's Federation entity, Suhret Fazlic, has resigned in a disagreement over the government's decision to form a private company that would assume some of the agency's responsibilities.

Niksic, the SDP's former secretary general and leader for the past year, was re-elected as party president for the next four years in polls on Sunday.

"This is a great victory, not only for the SDP but for Bosnia and Herzegovina as well," Niksic told a press conference on Sunday night.

Bakir Izetbegovic of the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and Zeljko Komsic of the Democratic Front, DF, on Tuesday said the crisis in the government of Bosnia's mainly Bosniak and Croat Federation entity had been resolved.

The two politicians said that problems over opposing views among coalition partners on the replacement of managers in key public companies had been overcome.

Unemployed veterans Sefik Muminovic, 55, and Dzemal Zahirovic, 59, arrived in the Sarajevo suburbs early on Tuesday morning after walking 108 kilometres along winding mountain roads from the northern industrial town of Zivinice.  

Five months on from the October general elections, the three main parties in Bosnia's Federation entity agreed on the formation of a new government.

Bosnia's ruling coalition has effectively collapsed after the three main parties in the Federation failed to agree on the makeup of the entity's new government on Sunday. 

This development puts in question the recent agreement on the formation of the new state government, and threatens to push the country deeper into political chaos five months after the elections.