Bosnia MP Challenged Over Change in Ethnic Status

While Bosnia awaits the formation of governments at entity and state level, an attempt by a new MP to change his ethnic status has highlighted a strange loophole in Bosnian law and politics.

Goran Opsenica, newly elected as an MP in the Federation entity's House of Representatives for the main Bosnian Croat party, Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, will be serving as an entity MP for the next four years - as a Serb.

Opsenica was formally given his mandate on Tuesday in Sarajevo. The formation of a government in Bosnia's Federation entity is yet to be completed in the coming period.

The formally non-ethnic Social Democratic Party, SDP, has announced it will file a criminal complaint, as it claims Opsenica's declaration as a Serb was not lawful.

"We want an investigation to see how it was possible for him to get a seat reserved for Serbs, although he publicly says he is a Croat," Irfan Cengic, general secretary of the SDP, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Opsenica is not the first politician in the multi-ethnic country to expore this anomaly, which is blamed on the country's complex system of ethnic quotas.

There are three constituent ethnic groups in Bosnia: Bosniak, Bosnian Croat and Serb, while those who do not identify with these may identify as "Others".

Under the constitution, ethnic quotas operate at many levels. The three-member state presidency, for example, must comprise a Serb, a Bosniak and a Croat.

Ethnic quotas also apply to seats in the Federation entity's House of Representatives, and to seats in the House of Peoples and Council of Peoples in the other entity, Republika Srpska.

Bosnia's election commission says that, by law, politicians may not change their national affiliation within the same four...