Speaking to reporters in Banja Luka this week, Tomislav Tomljanovic, the chair of the Croat caucus in the Republika Srpska Council of Peoples, said that the planned referendum on the RS National Day does not threaten or violate the “vital national interests” of non-Serbs.
“We have not challenged this issue, because it is constitutional right for citizens to declare their opinion in a referendum on issues they believe they are important,” Tomljanovic told the reporters, after the meeting of the Croat Caucus.
Serb member of the BiH presidency Mladen Ivanic also spoke in defense of the referendum on Thursday. He rejected accusations from Bosniak politicians that the referendum threatens the constitution, and said that all parties in Republika Srpska would protect the January 9 holiday.
He said that “colleagues from the Federation of BiH have to learn that we have our own values which we stand firmly behind and will never give up from.”
“If someone tries to destroy January 9, there is always an option by which it can remain,” said Ivanic and added that he would have changed the Law on Holidays in Srpska; he would develop the law on festivities instead of the law on public holidays, with January 9 on its list, and would write in the last article of the law that by passing this law, the law on public holidays ceases to be valid.
